I have not had a chance to read this whole excerpt from Bill James’ new book, but what I have read is very interesting.
I just realized that I neglected to add the warning that the link in my previous post was to a PDF file. Sorry!
No offense, Southern Yankee, but I think articles like that are one of the reasons traditionalists are so down on sabermetrics, namely the proliferation of stats for the sake of stats. IMO, many of the new acronymous stats tell us how players succeed, instead of to what extent players exceed. Most baseball fans have a pretty good idea about the former from personal observation and traditional stats, while the latter is at once more important and less clearcut.
James’ article, however, doesn’t tell us a damn thing about the players. The stats that go into season scores are mostly suspect from objective standpoint (W, L, SV are team dependent; Walks and K’s are useful peripherals, but certainly don’t deserve a full seat at the table) and thus anything derived from season scores is going to be highly questionable. This particular mishmash does seem to be a decent numeric representation of HOF voter’s opinions; the value of that I leave to you.
I know Bill James issued a mea culpa for contributing to the glut of mostly useless (defensive) stats in a previous volume, I just wish he’d had the good sense not to foist this article off on people looking for information about baseball.
It was mostly about rating pitchers for the Hall of Fame. I have never been convinced rating pitchers across eras is valid. I think rating their performance above the norm is useful though. But Cy Young and Clemens comparisons are a waste of time. They both qualify ,except for steroids.
Why would I take offense? I just posted a link I thought people might find interesting. Specifically because it mentions Andy Pettitte being just at or above the “cut line” for the HOF as per his methodology. (By the way, it’s not an article, but an excerpt from his new book.) James doesn’t say that this is any sort of definitive rating scale. One of the first things he says it that it’s just one of many. The top pitchers turn out to be fairly predictable, with a few exceptions (Tom Glavine is ranked surprisingly high, IMO. Not that he wasn’t a great pitcher, just that he’s higher than I expected.)
SouthernYankee-It’s hard to know how invested people are in links they post, so I erred on the side of polity. I noticed that it’s an excerpt, and that’s part of what got my dander up. Bill James has cachet; he’s the godfather of sabermetrics. And how does he use it? By constructing a highly subjective and capricious ranking system that essentially reinforces old school opinion. He’s hardly furthering objective knowledge about the sport, and he’s effectively undermining that search by putting his name on something so conventionally flawed.
Don’t get me wrong-Bill James is great; I’ve got his 2000 (or 2001) prospectus and it’s obvious that he’s forgotten more about baseball history than I’ll ever know. But that excerpt is crap.
Gonzomax-yeah I saw a disclaimer (this is just another ranking system, yada) but it rings hollow. If it is just another ranking system grounded in nothing, why publish it at all? Plus James isn’t comparing pitchers against the norm (I’m reading that as average), but against the top ten cohort, which skews things in favor of those facing softer competition (from their pitching peers.)
And back to rankings-I was most surprised by Hudson and Oswalt’s showings; it’s jarring to see their names amongst the HOF ranks without a disclaimer, especially when I think popular opinion would demand they each put up 3-5 more solid years apiece before anyone fires up their HOF campaigns. But the excerpt is very peak oriented in hindsight, almost to the point of chopping a career off at 30, and they were both great in their 20’s.
Buy the book and tell me how he handles Denny Mclain.
I enjoy James’ Prospectus as well, but don’t you think the same flaws you see in this ranking system can be seen in Win Shares? I tend to think he comes up with formulas to fit the answer. He plays with the numbers until they generally fit the top players in the game’s history. Then he uses them to look at the rest of the players.
Oh sure, but take his offensive Win Shares, which is based in Runs Created. Now RC is a flawed run estimator and has since been eclipsed by others, but at least it has predictive powers and gives a reasonable estimate something like 95% of the time. After that, he employs the same peak weighting and what not as he does in the excerpt you posted, but at least he is working from a solid estimate, whereas in the excerpt he starts with a bunch of questionable stats from the outset. It’s kind of caprice multiplied by caprice, whereas in Win Shares I think he’s working with decent numbers and decent assumptions and only giving himself carte blanche for the smaller, harder to quantify things that make up maybe 5%-15% of total value.
I was really pretty gobsmacked when I read that article. In my mind he went from reasonable with a few quibbles to arrogant almost to the point of inconsequence. I know the volume I have is littered with little ranking games and asides along the lines of “Hey look at this stat/ranking/coincidence. Isn’t that neat.” I enjoy those, but there’s a pretty big gap between a 400 word throw-away aside and a 20-some page ranking system.
Gonzomax, I don’t think I’ll be investing in that volume, but it looks like McLain would be around the low 30’s, perhaps 2-3 good years away from the HOF line.
Denny was a pleasure to watch. Few know how hard he worked on his game. When he discovered that a pitcher who could bunt well would be kept in the game , he practiced bunting until he could do it as well as a potential pitch hitter.
When Mantle was making his last turn around the league, Denny gave him a fastball your grandmother could hit. Mantle said “it was half hit, before I swung at it”. he threw the first one and it shocked Mickey. The catcher said, what do you want Mickey?. He got it.
I feel sad for Denny, his personal life has diminished his baseball accomplishments. They should be separate.
Nice to see the Cubs well represented there but I’ve learned not to get my hopes up. I can count the Cubs prospects who’ve panned out this century on one hand. It’s interesting that after Starlin Castro the next 4 Cubbies are between 70 and 100. I suspect the rankings beyond the top 20 or so becomes a bit of a crapshoot but it’s tough to feel too good about those guys chances.
Castro is getting a ton of Spring Training talk and I hope the kid simply owns that SS spot in Spring Training so we can move Theriot back to 2B. I’m guessing it’s a long shot at best since he’s just a puppy but if he can keep that OBP over 350 and the Ks down folks at Wrigley will be really happy.
I was looking at this last night along with the Baseball Prospectus list. The Yanks only have two listed in BAs and both are catchers. Only Montero is listed in the BP list.
Most scouts keep saying that he won’t be a full-time catcher but the Yanks seem to feel he will be the one to take over from Jorge Posada. He is only 20 and improving fast. Also obviously first base for the Yanks is blocked by Teixiera.
Austin Romine is getting good praise as a catching prospect, still 2-3 years away from what I understand.
BTW: Yankee Prospect OF Colin Curtis got the walk-off homer yesterday for the Yanks win over the Pirates. He looked very good in the Arizona league from what I recall. Though he has almost no shot at making the club out of spring training. He is expected to be in AAA Scranton.
I’d really expect him to be traded for any final piece needed going into October. He’s a great talent, but not a great fit for what the Yankees have on the field and in development. Doesn’t sound like he has the defensive abilities to stay behind home.
You could be right, but they have been unwilling to move him in packages so far for some very top talent apparently. The Yanks feel he is still learning and has plenty of upside. His arm is strong apparently but he needs to improve his release and accuracy. A common complaint is he is too big to be a catcher but while 6’5” is abnormally tall for a catcher; I believe Mauer is the same height.
My understanding is he might come up for his cup of coffee this year or if he is hitting well enough and there are injuries as a DH/C/1b call-up as soon as July. They hope next year he has progressed enough to do some of the catching in Jorge’s final contract year and might be ready to take on the bulk of the role in 2012. Similar to the transition that Girardi and Jorge made.
His trade value will skyrocket if he gets a cup of coffee and does well. Since he may have to move to 1B, and no one’s seen him in the majors, it’s a tough sell.
With Posada’s departure looming, either through retirement or free agency, I don’t see why the Yankees would shop their best prospect.
Now I say that not knowing the deal they’d get for him. If they ended up with The Final Piece, then you’ve gotta make that move.
Because no one really expects him to be able to catch long-term? I think they will keep him too though, since his bat is special (Bp has him as the 2nd best offensive prospect in baseball and they are assuming he will switch positions), and it be hard for the Yankees to get equal value back.
Regarding the Yanks plans at backstop, I am a very big fan of Francisco Cervelli, and hope that he figures to be in their plans.
That’s fine. He can’t be better/worse than Victor Martinez behind the plate, can he?