Red Sox Excelled In High Leverage Situations This Year, Allowing Them To Win Seven More Games Than Expected Based On Their OPS Differential

Here is a regression generated equation where team winning pct was a function of overall OPS differential. It was based on the years 2010-14. All data from Baseball Reference's Play Index.

Pct = .5 + 1.3246*OPSDIFF

The Red Sox had a team OPS of .792 while allowing their opponents .698, for a differential of .094. The equation estimates they would have a .6245 winning pct. That would be 101 wins. But they actually won 108 games.  Maybe it was because they did so well in High Leverage situations.

Split	OPS	POPS	Diff
High Lvrge	0.854	0.649	0.205
Medium Lvrge	0.801	0.734	0.067
Low Lvrge	0.762	0.689	0.073

They had a .854 OPS in High Leverage cases while allowing .649. Using the same years, here is the regression equation when breaking things down by leverage

Pct = .5 + .306*LOW +.420*MED + .564*HIGH

Where LOW, MED and HIGH are the OPS differentials in the three cases. That equation estimates they would have a .666 winning pct., good for 107.9 wins. So it looks like their High Leverage performance added about 7 wins.

In case anyone is curious, in LOW, MED and HIGH case for all of MLB this year, OPS was .724, .734, .724, respectively. So on average, teams do about the same in all cases. But the Red Sox were much different than that.

Roberto Clemente's Amazing Late Career Defense

Clemente is the only outfielder to have at least 1.0 defensive WAR at age 36 or older (from the Baseball Reference Play Index with a minimum of 50% of games played in the outfield).

In 1971, at age 36, Clemente had 1.8 defensive WAR in 1,081 innings (about 120 games).

In 1972, he had 1.0 defensive WAR in 812 innings (about 90 games).

Only two other players had at least 0.8. Robin Yount had 0.9 in 1993 at age 37. Steve Finley had 0.8 in 2004 at age 39.

If we lower the minimum defensive WAR to 0.5, it was done only 12 times outside of Clemente and only one guy did it more than once, Finley. Finley had 0.6 in 2001 at age 36.

Lonnie Smith had 0.7 at age 36 in 1992 but in only 84 games. Pretty impressive. Stan Javier had 0.8 at age 37 in 2001 in 89 games (he shows up if I set a minimum of 0.75 but not at 0.8).

If we lower the age to 35 but go back to a minimum of 1.0, there are still only 4 cases outside of Clemente. Here they are:

Rk	Player	dWAR	Year	Age	G
1	Willie Mays	2.1	1966	35	152
2	Roberto Clemente	1.8	1971	36	132
3	Devon White	1.5	1998	35	146
4	Jay Payton	1.3	2008	35	127
5	Al Bumbry	1.1	1982	35	150
6	Roberto Clemente	1	1972	37	102

If we look at ages 36-37 combined, Clemente has 2.7 (there must be a rounding issue because it is not 2.8). The only other guy with at least 1.0 is Finley, at 1.0.

Which teams had the largest differentials between their blowout winning percentage and their non-blowout winning percentage?

I used the Baseball Reference Situational Records tool. I found every team's record since 1901 in blowouts and in all other games then found the difference in winning pct. The 1931 Yankees do have the biggest differential of .330. The 1958 Reds are 2nd with .324 (.750 - .426).

Tm	Year	BW	BL	BW-L%	NBW	NBL	NBW-L%	Diff
NYY	1931	44	9	0.830	50	50	0.500	0.330
CIN	1958	24	8	0.750	52	70	0.426	0.324
CLE	1906	31	7	0.816	58	57	0.504	0.312
PIT	1911	32	9	0.780	53	60	0.469	0.311
PHA	1909	30	5	0.857	65	53	0.551	0.306
LAD	1977	27	5	0.844	71	59	0.546	0.298
OAK	1972	22	4	0.846	71	58	0.550	0.296
NYG	1929	39	13	0.750	45	54	0.455	0.295
HOU	1984	26	10	0.722	54	72	0.429	0.293
CHC	1909	35	4	0.897	69	45	0.605	0.292

Here are the biggest negative differentials.

Tm	Year	BW	BL	BW-L%	NBW	NBL	NBW-L%	Diff
BRO	1918	3	22	0.120	54	47	0.535	-0.415
SDP	2017	9	36	0.200	62	55	0.530	-0.330
CIN	2004	11	35	0.239	65	51	0.560	-0.321
NYG	1901	8	38	0.174	44	47	0.484	-0.310
SDP	2009	10	32	0.238	65	55	0.542	-0.304
PHA	1915	3	41	0.068	40	68	0.370	-0.302
WSH	1947	7	30	0.189	57	60	0.487	-0.298
SDP	1974	7	38	0.156	53	64	0.453	-0.297
PHI	2013	11	35	0.239	62	54	0.534	-0.295
PHI	2016	10	34	0.227	61	57	0.517	-0.290

Yelich Had 11th Highest 2nd Half SLG Since 1946

Click here to see the list from Baseball Reference's Play Index. The minimum 2nd half PA was 200.

Then I found the difference between 2nd half SLG and season SLG for all the guys that had at least a .700 SLG in the 2nd half. Then I ranked them by this difference and Yelich had the biggest difference. Here is that list.

Player	Year	2nd Half SLG	Season SLG	Diff
Christian Yelich	2018	0.770	0.598	0.172
Albert Belle	1998	0.816	0.655	0.161
David Ortiz	2015	0.701	0.553	0.148
Edwin Encarnacion	2015	0.700	0.557	0.143
Ken Caminiti	1996	0.760	0.621	0.139
Willie Mays	1963	0.709	0.582	0.127
Ted Williams	1957	0.855	0.731	0.124
Manny Ramirez	2008	0.723	0.601	0.122
Stan Musial	1949	0.740	0.625	0.115
Mark McGwire	1999	0.810	0.697	0.113
Eddie Mathews	1954	0.712	0.603	0.109
Stan Musial	1953	0.715	0.609	0.106
Albert Belle	1995	0.787	0.690	0.097
Jim Thome	2002	0.773	0.677	0.096
Ryan Howard	2006	0.751	0.659	0.092
Jose Bautista	2010	0.702	0.617	0.085
Duke Snider	1953	0.706	0.627	0.079
Sammy Sosa	2000	0.711	0.634	0.077
Mike Schmidt	1981	0.719	0.644	0.075
Mike Napoli	2011	0.706	0.631	0.075
Giancarlo Stanton	2017	0.702	0.631	0.071
Mike Piazza	1997	0.707	0.638	0.069
Javy Lopez	2003	0.755	0.687	0.068
Albert Pujols	2004	0.721	0.657	0.064
Jim Edmonds	2004	0.705	0.643	0.062
J.D. Martinez	2017	0.751	0.690	0.061
Barry Bonds	2003	0.806	0.749	0.057
Manny Ramirez	2000	0.750	0.697	0.053
Albert Pujols	2008	0.706	0.653	0.053
Jason Giambi	2001	0.709	0.660	0.049
Sammy Sosa	2001	0.785	0.737	0.048
Barry Bonds	2001	0.908	0.863	0.045
Hank Aaron	1971	0.710	0.669	0.041
Barry Bonds	2002	0.825	0.799	0.026
Todd Helton	2001	0.710	0.685	0.025
Barry Bonds	2004	0.832	0.812	0.020
Mark McGwire	1998	0.734	0.752	-0.018

Altuve's speed and power drop off

Here are some of his numbers each of the last 3 years.

ISO) .193-.201-.135
1B/AB) .227-.232-.234
BB/PA) .084-.088-.092
SO/PA) .098-.127-.132
SB)30-32-17

Big drop in isolated power this year. It does not seem like the rise in his SO/PA is the reason because it did not go up much this year and when it went up quite a bit last year, the power was there.

He seems to be getting singles and walks at about the same rate as before (if not a bit better). He had 23 fewer extra base hits (67-44) this year than last year (he did play 16 fewer games but if games were even and he had the same extra base hits per game he would only go up to 49 or 18 fewer).

Why are SBs down so much? Since he got on base by singles and walks at about the same rate or better as last year, why drop from 32 to 17? (it would be 19 in the same number of games as last year)

Is it a coincidence that SBs and power both dropped off at the same time? Did he have a leg injury that affected both?

Players who led their league in OBP & Power-Speed#

Here is what Baseball Reference says about Power-Speed#:

"2 x (Home Runs x Stolen Bases)/(Stolen Bases + Home Runs) The harmonic mean of HR and SB. To do well you need a lot of both. Developed by Bill James."

I thought that players who did this showed outstanding all-around offensive ability. Sixteen players have done it at least once with Ruth (3), Cobb (2) and Bonds (2) more than once. This is list is all-time greats, Hall of Famers and near greats.

Year	Player	PwrSpd	OBP
1901	Nap Lajoie+ (PHA)	18.4	0.463
1908	Honus Wagner+ (PIT)	16.8	0.415
1909	Ty Cobb+* (DET)	16.1	0.431
1910	Ty Cobb+* (DET)	14.2	0.456
1912	Tris Speaker+* (BOS)	16.8	0.464
1921	Babe Ruth+* (NYY)	26.4	0.512
1922	Rogers Hornsby+ (STL)	24.2	0.459
1923	Babe Ruth+* (NYY)	24	0.545
1926	Babe Ruth+* (NYY)	17.8	0.516
1933	Chuck Klein+* (PHI)	19.5	0.422
1934	Arky Vaughan+* (PIT)	10.9	0.431
1950	Larry Doby+* (CLE)	12.1	0.442
1952	Jackie Robinson+ (BRO)	21.2	0.440
1972	Dick Allen (CHW)	25.1	0.420
1976	Joe Morgan+* (CIN)	37.2	0.444
1990	Rickey Henderson+ (OAK)	39.1	0.439
1992	Barry Bonds* (PIT)	36.3	0.456
1993	Barry Bonds* (SFG)	35.6	0.458
1997	Larry Walker* (COL)	39.4	0.452
2016	Mike Trout (LAA)	29.5	0.441

Mike Trout is first player to win a triple threat triple crown since 1978

A couple of years ago I came up with what I called a "triple threat" triple crown. If a player led the league in a speed stat, a power stat and an on-base stat, he qualified.

I compiled a list of players I thought had done it and it is at this link

 https://cybermetric.blogspot.com/2015/07/triple-threat-triple-crowns.html

Please let me know if you think I missed someone. Also, just a couple of days ago I added Hank Aaron (1963) and Joe Morgan (176) if you require a 20 SB mininum. Trout led the AL in isolated power (ISO which is SLG - AVG), OBP (.460) and SB% (if we use a 20 SB minimum).

Here are the top 5 qualified batters in the AL in ISO

Player	ISO	BA	SLG
Mike Trout	0.316	0.312	0.628
Khris Davis	0.302	0.247	0.549
J.D. Martinez	0.299	0.330	0.629
Mookie Betts	0.294	0.346	0.640
Joey Gallo	0.292	0.206	0.498

Here are all the AL players with 20+ SBs this year. Baseball Reference has a minimum number of SB attempts of .1 per team game to qualify for the league lead in SB%. So if a player has 16 attempts, he qualifies. But The ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia, Fifth Edition by Gary Gillette and Pete Palmer has 20 SBs as the minimum. Baseball Reference shows Jackie Bradley as the leader with 94.44% (17-1).

Player	SB%	SB	CS
Mike Trout	92.31%	24	2
Jonathan Villar	87.50%	21	3
Andrew Benintendi	87.50%	21	3
Jose Ramirez	85.00%	34	6
Greg Allen	84.00%	21	4
Delino DeShields	83.33%	20	4
Mookie Betts	83.33%	30	6
Adalberto Mondesi	82.05%	32	7
Whit Merrifield	81.82%	45	10
Mallex Smith	76.92%	40	12
Tim Anderson	76.47%	26	8
Rajai Davis	75.00%	21	7
Dee Gordon	71.43%	30	12
Francisco Lindor	71.43%	25	10
Jean Segura	64.52%	20	11

2 more triple threat triple crowns

A couple of years ago I came up with what I called a "triple threat" triple crown. If a player led the league in a speed stat, a power stat and an on-base stat, he qualified.

I compiled a list of players I thought had done it and it is at this link

 https://cybermetric.blogspot.com/2015/07/triple-threat-triple-crowns.html

Please let me know if you think I missed someone.

Baseball Reference has a minimum number of SB attempts of .1 per team game to qualify for the league lead in SB%. So if a player has 16 attempts, he qualifies.

In 1976, Willie Davis is listed as the NL leader with 87.5% (14-2). In 1963, Lee Maye is also listed as the NL leader with 87.5% (14-2).

But The ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia, Fifth Edition by Gary Gillette and Pete Palmer has 20 SBs as the minimum. If we go with that, then we will have different leaders in each of these two years, Hank Aaron and Joe Morgan.

In 1963, Hank Aaron had the highest SB% in the NL of anyone with 20+ SBs, 86.11% (31-5). He led the league in SLG with .586 and times on base with 279. So he won a triple threat triple crown that year.

In 1976, Joe Morgan had the highest SB% in the NL of anyone with 20+ SBs, 86.96% (60-9).  He led the league in SLG with .576 and OBP with .444.

What 40 year old player led his league in OBP, SB% and was 2nd in Power-Speed #?

Willie Mays, 1971.

Here is what Baseball Reference says about Power-Speed #

"2 x (Home Runs x Stolen Bases)/(Stolen Bases + Home Runs) The harmonic mean of HR and SB. To do well you need a lot of both. Developed by Bill James."

Mays led the league in with a .425 OBP. The NL average was just .316

His SB% was 88.46% (23-3). The league average was 64.7%.

His Power-Speed # was 20.2. Only 25 year old Bobby Bonds (Barry's dad) was higher with 29.1 (Mays hit 18 HRs).

Mays is the only player at least 37 years old to have at least 15 HRs, 20 SBs, and a .400+ OBP. Only 1 guy did it at age 36 (Molitor).

Mays is the only player 40+ years old to steal 20+ bases with at least an 80% success rate.

He was 5th in the NL in WAR for position players with 6.3. The Giants won their division by a single game over the Dodgers.

Players with .600+ SLG, .400+ OBP, 20+SB, less than 5CS

Mays, AROD, Chipper Jones, Frank Robinson, Trout (2017). Trout could do it again this year. Trout only 1 with under 10 GDP (since 1933-some years came up when CS not kept)

From Baseball Reference's Play Index

Player	SLG	OBP	SB	CS	Year	GDP
Willie Mays	0.659	0.400	24	4	1955	12
Frank Robinson	0.611	0.404	22	3	1961	15
Chipper Jones	0.633	0.441	25	3	1999	20
Alex Rodriguez	0.645	0.422	24	4	2007	15
Mike Trout	0.629	0.442	22	4	2017	8
Mike Trout	0.636	0.460	24	2	2018	5

Trout still has a chance to be the first player to win a "triple threat" triple crown in 40 years

In 2015, I did a post on "triple threat" triple crowns "triple threat" triple crowns.

Suppose that we looked for league leaders in stats that might represent three different skills:

Speed (triples, SBs, SB%)

Power (SLG, ISO, HRs, TBs, extra-base hits)

Getting on base (OBP, times on base)

So if a player lead his league one year in at least one stat from all three skills, he won the "triple threat" triple crown. The link above has a table with all the winners. The last guy to do it was Jim Rice in 1978.

Thru yesterday, Trout is 2nd in SB%, leads in Isolated Power (ISO) and OBP.

To lead the league in SB%, a player has to have .1 attempts for every game his team played (according to Baseball Reference). So they use a minimum of 16 attempts. Trout is 22-2 in stealing for 91.67%. Jackie Bradley is first with 92.86% (13-1). But if Bradley does not reach 16 attempts this season, Trout would be the leader.

Trout leads in ISO (SLG - AVG). He has .309 (.623 - .314). J.D. Martinez is 2nd with .301 (.633 - .332).

It Is Rare For Teammates To Both Have At Least A 170 OPS+ And Betts And JD Martinez Might Do It

The table below shows all the teammates since 1900 who each had at least a 170 OPS+ in the same season and qualified for the batting title. Ruth & Gehrig did it 6 times, more than the rest combined. Gehrig had 165 in 1929. Ruth had 193. Aaron (182) and Mathews (168) came close in 1959. Cobb & Heilmann each had 169 in 1922. Data from Baseball Reference.

Player	OPS+	Year	Tm
Babe Ruth	225	1927	NYY
Lou Gehrig	220	1927	NYY
Babe Ruth	206	1928	NYY
Lou Gehrig	193	1928	NYY
Babe Ruth	211	1930	NYY
Lou Gehrig	203	1930	NYY
Babe Ruth	218	1931	NYY
Lou Gehrig	194	1931	NYY
Babe Ruth	201	1932	NYY
Lou Gehrig	181	1932	NYY
Babe Ruth	176	1933	NYY
Lou Gehrig	177	1933	NYY
Joe Medwick	182	1937	STL
Johnny Mize	173	1937	STL
Kevin Mitchell	192	1989	SFG
Will Clark	175	1989	SFG
Albert Pujols	173	2004	STL
Jim Edmonds	171	2004	STL
J.D. Martinez	182	2018	BOS
Mookie Betts	193	2018	BOS

Jack Morris Did Not Excel At ERA+, FIP ERA, Pitching To The Score, Strikeout-To-Walk Ratio Or Pitching In Big Games Even Though He Had Very Good Fielding Behind Him

This is a post I did last December.

Jack Morris had one top 5 finish in ERA+ and none in FIP ERA.

Now you might say that ERA or ERA+ can be affected by fielders, so if a guy has bad fielders, it hurts his ERA.

But Morris had good fielders like Trammel, Whitaker and Chet Lemon behind him. For most of his time with the Tigers, they were above average in Defensive Efficiency Rating and several times were number 1 (I think 4-5 times). So it seems unlikely that his ERA could have been hurt by bad fielders.

So then when we adjust his ERA for park effects with ERA+, he managed only one top 5 finish. So he was rarely one of the elite pitchers in the league.

Not having any top finishes in FIP ERA might not be his fault if Tiger stadium was an easy park to hit HRs in. But he actually had only one top 10 finish in his career and that was a 6th. Don't forget that walks and strikeouts affect FIP ERA along with HRs. But anyway, we can always go back to ERA+, which, again, does not seem to be unfair to him since it seems like he had good fielders behind him.

He also had only one top 5 finish in strikeout to walk ratio

Now some people said he was a winner. But his career winning pct of .577 is only 205th best all-time. He also had only three top 5 finishes and never led the league, even though he pitched for some good teams.

Some have said he could pitch to the situation. But here are his OPS allowed stats for Low, Medium, and High Leverage situations

Low .694
Medium .692
High .695

Now maybe the norm for starters is to do much worse in high leverage cases. But this does not look that impressive

He was supposed to be a big game pitcher. But in 92 post-season innings he has an ERA of 3.80. Good, but not great.

The table below shows the Tigers Defensive Efficiency Rating each year from 1979-1990, the years when Morris was a regular starting pitcher with them. It also shows where they ranked in the league each year as well as the league average. Then averages for all three are shown. He had some good fielders behind him.

Year	DER	Rank	Lg Avg
1979	0.705	5	0.700
1980	0.704	4	0.698
1981	0.740	1	0.711
1982	0.725	1	0.704
1983	0.726	1	0.699
1984	0.713	3	0.699
1985	0.717	2	0.706
1986	0.719	1	0.699
1987	0.705	3	0.697
1988	0.718	1	0.702
1989	0.690	12	0.698
1990	0.705	5	0.699
	0.714	3.25	0.701

Does plate discipline lead to higher averages with runners in scoring position?

Last Saturday during the Astros-Angels game one of the announcers said something about how Bregman has become more disciplined this year and knows the strike zone better, so that has helped him hit better with RISP (he is 5th in the league or MLB, can't recall which).

I asked on the Yahoo Statistical Analysis group if there are any studies that show that guys with more plate discipline do better with RISP, either in general or relative to what they normally hit.
D.K. Willardson responded and did a study, looking at the relationship between OSwing % and RISP AVG minus Overall AVG (OSwing % is the percentage of pitches outside the strike zone that batters swing at). D.K. looked at Qualified Hitters 2015-2017.

The r-squared was .0372, meaning that only 3.72% of the variation in Overall AVG minus RISP AVG is explained by OSwing %. So guys who are more disciplined do improve with RISP, but not much.

A three true outcome All-Star game

Not only was there an above average number of HRs in the game, there was a slightly above average number of walks and strikeouts.

There were 9 walks in 10 IP.  The MLB average per team is 3.3 per 9 IP. So that would be 6.6 for two teams. 9 in 10 is above average.

There were 25 strikeouts in the game or 12.5 per team. The MLB average per 9 IP is 8.5.

Half of the hits were HRs. 10 out of 20.

The average team gets 7.3 non-HR hits per game. So you would expect 14.6 in 9 innings. But in 10 innings there were only 10.

Maybe most all-star games are like this. But this game did shatter the HR record.

Update July 24: Diane Firstman tweeted on July 20 "it was an all-time record high of 48.9% (44 TTO / 90 PAs)."

Her blog is Value Over Replacement Grit: We are the VORG. Replacement is futile. Her poster presentation on TTOs won an award at the recent SABR convention. See SABR 48: Maddox, Firstman win 2018 convention presentation awards.

Today is the anniversary of the "Grich game" when he almost single handedly defeated the Yankees and Ron Guidry in 1979

Click here to go the box score and play by play at Baseball Reference.

Bobby Grich went 4 for 5 (all against Guidry). That included a HR and a 2B with 5 RBIs in a 5-4 come from behind win for the Angels. Grich had a win probability added (WPA) of 1.211, the 9th highest that we know of. Guidry won the Cy Young award the year before while leading the league in ERA. He would lead the AL again in ERA in 1979. This was a home game for the Angels.

Here are Grich's ABs:

1st: Lineout with one out and none on trailing 2-0.

3rd: Single with runners on 1st and 2nd and one out to drive in a run to make the score 4-1.

5th: Single with a man on first and two outs. But next batter makes an out.

7th: Double with runners on 1st and 2nd and one out. Both runners score to make it 4-3.

9th: HR with man on 1st and two outs. Gives the Angels a 5-4 victory in front of 40,739 fans (also in 2 hours 19 minutes).

As mentioned earlier, Grich had a win probability added (WPA) of 1.211, the 9th highest that we know of (using the Baseball Reference Play Index-for games of at least .9, the earliest is 1925). Click here to see all those games. Art Shamsky had a game of 1.503 in 1966, which is the best. WPA uses historical data to estimate how much every change in the base-out-score situation changes a team's probability of winning. The later and closer the game, the more a hit increases WPA.

That famous "Sandberg game" when Ryne hit two clutch HRs off of Bruce Sutter is 42nd with 1.063. I have written about that game. It was impressive, but Sutter was no longer in is prime like Guidry was in 1979. Grich's game is far better. See my post from a few years ago Where Does "The Sandberg Game" Rank In WPA? I explain how hitting a HR off of Sutter was not especially hard at that point in his career.

Guidry as well rested coming into the game. He went 6 innings on July 10th, so he was not over worked. He did face 38 batters in this game, including 10 Ks and 2 BBs. So he could have easily thrown over 100 pitches.

He faced Grich for the 5th time that game in the 9th inning. Guidry's OPS allowed that year when facing batters for the 4th time or more in a game was .863. Pretty high. But the year before it was just .334 and the year after it was .627. So Guidry was not necessarily going to have problems in this situation. In 1977 it was .739

Here is what all AL pitchers allowed facing batters for the 4th time or more in a game in from 1977-80 with the league average OPS for all PAs after it in parentheses.

1977: .746 (.735)
1978: .719 (.711)
1979: .765 (.743)
1980: .766 (.731)

So batters did somewhat better facing a pitcher for the 4th time or more, but in the two previous years, not by much. Yes, Guidry faced Grich for the 5th time in the 9th. But he was the Cy Young award winner the previous year (with a 1.74 ERA). So it is not surprising a manager would stick with him.

Rich Gossage, one of the Yankees' best relievers, worked 3.2 innings the day before and another good righty reliever, Ron Davis had pitched 2.1. Davis also pitched on July 13th. Looking at the Yankee roster, those guys seem to have been the best possible options.

Grich was a righty and Guidry was a lefty. But Guidry did not get hit that hard by righties. Here are his HRs allowed divided by PAs for the years 1977-80:

1977: 9/606
1978: 11/757
1979: 17/776
1980: 12/729

So a manager would not have worried too much about Guidry having to face a righty.

Here is the OPS Guidry allowed vs. righties:

1977: .629
1978: .561
1979: .667
1980: .724

Here is the OPS Guidry allowed during innings 7-9:

1977: .677
1978: .428
1979: .755
1980: .659

Again, no big indicators that it would be a problem to leave Guidry in. Grich did hit 30 HRs that year but before that he had never hit 19. He did have 18 HRs in 358 PAs thru July 14, which is a pretty good total.

Here are his OPS vs. lefties:

1976: .794
1977: .807 (in only 50 PAs, he was hurt)
1978: .796
1979: .909 (but it was .900 vs. righties)
1980: .547

So it looks like there would have been no reason for a manager to especially fear Grich when facing a lefty. Good, but not devastating numbers.

Update 7-16-18: Grich had only faced Guidry 7 times before this game in his career and only once before that season. Grich was 2 for 7 with a single, a double and 3 strikeouts. Sandberg had faced Sutter 12 times including 4 times that season.

Was Bobby Murcer one of the most underrated players of the '70s?

That is what someone said on Twitter today. But who underrated him? How do we measure that?

I have tried to estimate this before and links are provided below. If you read them and click on links to the complete rankings, Murcer does not appear to have been underrated.

Here I just looked at where he ranked in WAR among position players and in MVP shares among position players. Here are the WAR leaders from the 1970s using the Baseball Reference Play Index

WAR leaders of the 1970s.

Murcer is 38th.

I also copied and pasted all the MVP votes from 1970-1979 from both leagues into Excel and found the cumulative total for each player.  I took out any pitchers. Murcer is 36th, very close to his rank in WAR. So it seems that he was rated just about right by the MVP voters. He had three top 10 finishes (a 7th, a 5th and a 9th).

Name	Share
Willie Stargell	3.16
Joe Morgan	2.99
Johnny Bench	2.67
Jim Rice	2.1
Steve Garvey	2.06
Reggie Jackson	2.05
Pete Rose	1.98
Dave Parker	1.97
George Foster	1.94
Rod Carew	1.7
Greg Luzinski	1.52
George Brett	1.51
Thurman Munson	1.5
Ken Singleton	1.41
Fred Lynn	1.4
Billy Williams	1.32
Sal Bando	1.32
Mike Schmidt	1.22
Joe Rudi	1.08
Don Baylor	1.04
Lou Brock	1.01
Bobby Bonds	1
Joe Torre	0.99
Reggie Smith	0.99
Dick Allen	0.98
Amos Otis	0.93
Brooks Robinson	0.81
Jeff Burroughs	0.79
John Mayberry	0.78
Frank Robinson	0.75
Hank Aaron	0.73
Boog Powell	0.72
Mickey Rivers	0.7
Ted Simmons	0.67
Tony Perez	0.67
Bobby Murcer	0.66

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

Using A Player's WAR To Predict First Year Hall Of Fame Vote Percentage (and possibly estimate "underratedness")