slow pace #'s

[TGJB]

Check out McGwire, Bonds, Ricky, Strawberry.

[derby1592]

The combination of speed and power is rare but is also the stamp of greatness. Bonds is the best today and there were others in the past such as Mays, Mantle, etc. all had the ability to get on base as well as hit for power. (By the way, I agree that those two stats are best indicators of great hitters).  

Very similar to speed and stamina in horses. There are a lot of very speedy horses and a lot of horses that can run all day but very few that can carry brilliant speed over a distance of ground. Those that can are truly gifted. Horses like Secretariat, Spectacular Bid, Seattle Slew, etc.

In my view, the fact that few can excel at both enhances rather than diminishes the value of the measure.

Chris

[derby1592]

For those who like to waste time debating about sports stats and topics such as \"who was better, Mantle or Mays,\" I recommend the new book by Allen Barra (the baseball stat guy from the Village Voice).

Chapters include among others:

\"Getting Tough with Babe Ruth\"

\"Mickey Mantle vs. Willie Mays\"

\"Juan Marichal and Bob Gibson\"

\"Wilt vs. Russell\"

I don\'t want to give anything away but HP may not agree with a lot of what is written in the chapter on Ruth.

Unfortunately, the following chapters were not included in the book:

\"Secretariat vs Man o War\"

\"Arcaro vs Cordero\"

\"Ruffian vs Personal Ensign\"

I am sure you can add to the list. Looks to me like there is still room for a \"numbers\" book looking back at racing greats (running, riding, training, breeding). I wonder who could write that book? It would have to be somebody with good performance figures and good statistical data...

Chris

[magicnight]

Chris;

It wasn\'t speed and power, but on-base-average and power that I find to be very rare.

While I agree that ob-avg & slugging % combined can be a good way of comparing hall-of-famers; when applied to mere mortals it makes for mushy comparisons (a slap hitter who walks a lot could have a similar number to a good power guy who hits .240 and doesn\'t get many BB\'s - how is this a meaningful comparison?).

JB:

I assume that foursome was directed at me?

McGwire - Frankenstein with some huge holes in his strike zone. I don\'t think his career oba is anything to write home about. There are loads of HR hitters I would take ahead of this guy.

Bonds - A jerk and the best player over the past 15 years.

Rickey - Another jerk and the greatest leadoff hitter of all time. The power is nice, but it was just the cherry on a hot fudge sundae.

Strawberry - Is his inclusion an attempted non-sequiter? Did he ever hit 300? How many times did he get 100 walks?

Outside of Bonds, tell me someone from the last 50 years who could provide both power and average (ba and/or oba) - over the course of their career - in the manner of Ted Williams or George Brett.

bb

ps - did not check out the BB encyclopedia over the weekend (the library is upstate, not in my nyc hovel), but now my interest is piqued. I\'ll see what I can dig up on this subject later this week or on the weekend.

[TGJB]

I think you will find that McGwire and Strawberry had higher oba\'s than you think.

[Alydar in California]

Derby 1592:

I tried to get you interested in Bill James a year ago. Then, nothing. Now, this. Something really wrong is going on here.

I don\'t want to read \"In my view.\" That is Bob Dole, pal.

Bob Barry: Please dig up a ballpark adjustment, too.

[magicnight]

Alydar;

Hey, I never claimed to be a Jamesian. Don\'t you have that in one of the Baseball Abstracts?

Seriously, I\'ll see what I can find, but the Baseball Encyclopedia is my only baseball reference book, and I don\'t think they have anything like that in there. I\'ll see what I can do.

I think for this statistical question (where slugging percentage will count for more than half the total) the era in which one played will have more influence than the home ballpark of the player in question. The post-\'94 era is on a par with the 30\'s in terms of power stats. Even playing in little old Fenway, Ted Williams is at a disadvantage against current sluggers. And George Brett playing in Royals Stadium? He should get ten to twenty pounds from Bonds and McGwire.

TGJB;

I\'ll check out your four against my two, as well as the ones who (I\'m guessing) will be right there towards the top. Ruth, Gehrig, Mantle, Mays, Aaron, Robinson, Jackson (Shoeless Joe, not Reggie), Foxx, Greenberg, McCovey.

I\'m guessing the following will not be as high up the list as others might suspect. DiMaggio (oba not that great), Cobb (no power), Killebrew & Schmidt (relatively low ba\'s).

Who am I leaving out>

bb

[Alydar in California]

Bob: Hornsby?

The other stuff late tonight.

[derby1592]

Bob,

Again, I don\'t want to give anything away in the book but Schmidt is much better than you think if you look at OBA as opposed to batting average and he also led the lead in home runs 8 times.

You should read the book (Clearing the Bases by Allen Barra). Short essay-like chapters. You may not agree with his thesis but he makes some interesting points. He definitely raised my opinion of Schmidt.

Chris

[BB]

Alydar;

Yes. Thanks. He\'s the only player ever traded after a triple crown season, yes?

I\'ll enjoy the rest in the later AM.

Bob

[BB]

Chris;

I may have underrated Schmidt a bit. I think the shorthand I used this afternoon was penalizing guys without great ba\'s backing up their power, especially if they were prone to striking out (figuring they would frequently get challenged rather than walked - having no idea of their actual oba\'s). Now that I think about Schmidt a little more I remember a guy with a hole up and in ... but with a pretty good eye who could lay off the junk low and away. His oba is probably better than I thought - his lifetime ba is what? @ 285?

On Barra, thanks for the tip. I always liked his stuff in the Voice when I saw it. Now I see a freelance thing once in a while. I\'ll pick it up.

Belated thanks for your modeling this spring. You added a lot to the Triple Crown reading here!

Bob

[Alydar in California]

Bob wrote:

\"Yes. Thanks. He\'s the only player ever traded after a triple crown season, yes?\"

No. He was traded a couple of years later, I think. I believe Chuck Klein was traded right after he won it. Hornsby will do well with this method, better than McGwire and Schmidt, and much better than Darryl Strawberry, for God\'s sake, but my experience is that Babe Ruth usually dominates these things.

\"I\'ll enjoy the rest in the later AM.\"

I\'m sorry. It will have to be Tuesday night. You wrote many interesting things, and I\'m too tired to do them justice now.

[derby1592]

Bob,

If you do read the book, let me know if it changes your view of Schmidt.

Out of curiosity, give me your \"holes in his swing\" analysis of Barry Bonds. Statistically, he has been off the charts in recent years and he is the modern poster child for why OBA and slugging are much more meaningful stats than average, home runs and RBI. He gets pitched around almost anytime there is somebody on base or in the late innings.

Chris

P.S. Schmidt\'s lifetime batting average was a lowly .267 but his OBA was a sparkling .384 as compared to say, Pete Rose who had a lifetime OBA of only .377. That little tidbit blew me away.

[Alydar in California]

Bob: Double sorry. I need another day or two. I\'m trying to find some stuff, but this place ain\'t cooperating.

[magicnight]

Chris;

I will find the book and let you know what I think. I didn\'t really have a negative view on Schmidt (consistent, sturdy, great glove, great power) - I just didn\'t think his OBA was as strong as it is.

Does Bonds have a hole in his swing these days? I\'d like to line up his stance from 1990 with his stance of today. My guess is that he has moved closer to the plate (the partial body armor helps), which allows him to put a good swing on almost anything over the plate. By crowding the plate he does not have to (defensively) slap the pitches on the outer part of the plate to left. The stuff that veers inside can be yanked foul because his swing is so quick.

This stance, plus his compact swing (as opposed to the longer, loopier swings of Schmidt and McGwire) goes a long way towards filling the high-and-tight & low-and-away holes that are common to most hitters. I\'d guess that Schmidt\'s oba got better over time as he improved on laying off the low-and-away stuff. The high-and-tight stuff will always be a problem for the Schmidts and McGwires who need to extend their arms to generate the bulk of their power.

That said, all hitters have holes in their swings. But in the expanded baseball universe of today, the percentage of pitchers who are able to direct pitches to these holes with pace and movement has never been lower. In other words, a hitter\'s hole is not constant - it is related to who is throwing pitches towards that hole. And Barry Bonds will face Johnson and Schilling only about half as often as Willie Mays had to face Spahn and Sain.

If opposing managers and pitchers were not so  careful in pitching to Bonds, he would win the Triple Crown in a gallop.

Regarding your ps, that is a huge split between ba and oba for Schmidt ... wow. As for Rose, the oba does not surprise. He got pitched to because he was not a power threat and he had all those monsters hitting behind him. But Rose beings me to another subject (sorry, this is dragging on I know).

I think this discussion on baseball stats is an interesting companion piece to the Jockey ROI discussion that is ongoing - is there value in these stats?

While Rose\'s lifetime oba is not that great for a leadoff hitter (I\'d guess Rickey\'s is 40 or 50 points higher), and though he was an average fielder in any of the positions he played, he is still one of the great winners in the history of the game. Yes, he was on good and great teams, but he also had incredible intangibles - competitiveness, desire, smarts - and mostly (for lack of a better word) \"heart\".

The reason I don\'t really subscribe fully to the Bill James view on things is that he wants to be able to measure everything. But certain things defy measurement. Ted Williams and Bill James don\'t think swinging at balls is a good idea, yet Yogi Berra and Roberto Clemente are two bad ball hitters that went all the way to Cooperstown.

But I digress. What made Rose a Rose are his intangibles. Two moments that define Pete Rose for me both happened - not coincidentially - in the 1980 World Series. The Royals were the better team. But Rose willed that Phillies team to their only WS crown.

Moment \"A\". Foul pop along the dugout. Phillies catcher (Boone?) and first baseman Rose converge of the play. The catcher gets there first, closes his mitt prematurely, and the ball continues earthward. Rose, who never once stopped playing, crouches down and snatches the ball a few inches off the ground. The most amazing 2-3 play I have ever seen.

Moment \"B\". The Phillies are trailing in the Series and are in a tight game with Dennis Leonard (one of the top hard-throwing righthanders of the day). Leonard comes down and in, way in, with a fastball. Rose does not move an inch. The pitch smacks into his shin. Rose stares out at Leonard and sneers ... as if saying \"Is that all you got?\".

I hated the guy. He did not have a lot of talent. And, despite all of his great statistics, his greatest attributes were unmeasureable. What player today is capable of producing either \"A\" or \"B\"? Much less both. Statistics can be great. But sometimes greatness can only be seen or felt - not measured.

Bob