Whose Reputation Has Been Helped/Hurt Most by Revolution in Baseball Stats?

The Game Room
1

Obviously, baseball statistics have come a long, long way since I was a kid. But for the MOST part, the new stats (OPS, WHIP, VORP, Win Shares, et al) haven’t really changed who we regard as the greatest players ever.

I mean, in 1970, if you’d asked anyone to name the greatest offensive players of all time, even the most innumerate fan would have said, “Babe Ruth, Ted Williams, Lou Gehrig,” and he’d have been right.

In general, the new stats haven’t changed how we perceive the guys who were already in the Pantheon. Guys who were viewed as the greatest of the great before STILL are, even with the new stats. And the guys everyone thought were lousy are usually STILL seen as lousy.

New stats rarely tell us that somebody we thought was magnificent really sucked. If anything, they’re more likely to tell us that somebody we THOUGHT was very good was actually a little better than we knew. It’s at the margins where we see big changes. Thanks to stat freaks, many guys who were regarded as very-good-but-not-quite-Hall-of-Famers (Bert Blyleven, for instance) are now seen as legitimate Hall of Famers, and a lot of guys who did make it into the Hall of Fame are now seen as very-good-but-not-quite Hall of Famers.

But I’m wondering, whose reputation has risen or fallen the most, due to the new approach to stats?

2

Don’t know but as a sports nut who works as a data analyst I loved these two recent articles:

Secret basketball stats

Winners and Losers

3

To be honest I don’t know that a lot of past players have had their reputations rise all that much due to better understanding of how baseball works. Maybe among people really into sabermetrics, but that’s a small group.

Certainly, some players have had their reputations fall. A lot of the Hall of Fame’s more awful selections, like George Kelly or Freddie Lindstrom, are now properly regarded as bad selections.

But I don’t think that has a lot to do with newfangled stats like WARP and OPS. I think the really big change in that regard has just been the availability of information. When I was kid - and we’re just talking 25 years ago or so - getting detailed baseball information was hard. There was no Internet, no 24-hour sports coverage on multiple channels, and spotty reporting of stats in newspapers. So if they said George Kelly was a Hall of Famer, you kind of had to assume he must have been pretty awesome. It wasn’t possible to instantly to a web site with hyperlinked details on every player who’s ever played and say “Hey, you know, there are lots and lots of guys just as good as this guy.”

I can think, though, of one player who might have had his reputation really soar; Richie Ashburn. Ashburn was already regarded as a pretty good player but his reputation started to really climb in the 1990s based on two things:

  1. Increased understanding of the importance of on base percentage, which was most of Ashburn’s offensive game, and
  2. Range factors.

Ashburn, of course, made absolutely ludicrous numbers of plays, amazing numbers. When “Range factor” came into vogue it made Ashburn appear as if he was the greatest defensive center fielder who ever put on a glove. People started saying that Ashburn was a forgotten defensive genius who won many, many games with his glove. And I think that, plus the understanding of his on base percentage, helped get him into the Hall of Fame (his broadcasting career helped, too.)

The funny thing is that the range factor thing was, of course, wrong. Ashburn’s huge number of putouts was to a large extent a product of circumstance; he happened to play behind some of the most fly-ball prone pitching staffs of all time in a park that allowed for a lot of fly balls. He was an excellent center fielder all the same but he was more like Vernon Wells, not Willie Mays. The assessment of a LOT of fielders based on the analysis of that time was, in fact, hopelessly wrong and based on a lot of incomplete information. The assessment of Ashburn at the time he was playing - that he was very good but not great - was closer to the truth than the amazed declarations of the 1990s that he was the greater center fielder to ever live.

Ashburn isn’t by any means a bad Hall of Fame choice like Jesse Haines, but I think he’s the answer to your question; he was below the line before sabermetrics and sabermetrics helped him get over it.

4

I think Joe Morgan’s reputation has risen fairly considerably since the rise of sabermetrics, which I mainly mention due to the irony involved. I don’t think it was a huge shift for him though, merely from thought of as “really great” to “really really great”.

5

I think a lot of middle infielders from the 70’s and 80’s have seen improved reputations, at least amongst stat-heads. I think I’ve seen Bobby Grich mentioned respectfully a few times recently, something that was practically unthinkable ten years ago.

6

Those were hardly considered important statistics outside of the Sabrmetric world in 1995, when he was elected – by the Committee on Veterans, which at the time still paid absolutely no attention to the new statistics. And Ashburn was a five-time all-star on a series of absolutely terrible teams and managed a .308 lifetime batting average, leading the league in batting twice and hits three times. So ultimately, the old fashioned stats were good enough.

And even though OBP was rarely discussed, the ability of players to draw walks was always considered an asset by baseball insiders.

The one player who took a big hit due to the new fielding stats were clearly Larry Bowa. He went from being considered one of the best defensive shortstops in baseball, to being considered seen as nothing more than a mediocre fielder once range factors came out. Bowa was smooth and flashy and made great plays, but only within his limited range. When James pointed this out, it caused an uproar, but now it’s been pretty much accepted. Bowa has been the poster boy for how Sabrmetrics gives better analysis, and his reputation continues to drop.

7

Bert Blyleven has pretty clearly benefitted from the enhanced statistical view, but not enough of that realization has trickled to the non-stat based folks yet.

Darrell Evans historical standing is much improved now that on base percentage has risen to it’s proper importance.

8

Please elaborate. Bowa’s fielding career fielding percentage was .980, which is superb- better than any shortstop you’re likely to think of, off the top of your head.

As for his range, well, his career Range Factor was 4.80. Now, that certainly doesn’t put him head and shoulders above other shortstops (Ozzie Smith and Mark Belanger, among others, had substantially higher Range Factors), but it’s better than that of Barry Larkin, Alex Rodriguez, Omar Vizquel, Alan Trammell, Cal Ripken Jr., and Miguel Tejada.

I’m NOT saying Bowa was as good as Ozzie Smith (or even Mark Belanger), but it’s hard to see how he could be overrated.

9

I believe Mike Schmidt’s reputation has been helped. One of the effects of the stats revolution is that people don’t put so much emphasis on batting average. Schmidt is widely considered the greatest third-baseman ever despite the fact that his career average is .267.

10

Just thought of another: Joe Carter’s large number of RBIs would have gotten him a lot more respect before the stats revolution. Today a lot of people see him as a free swinger whose RBI total was helped immensely by the players who hit in front of him. Carter’s career OBP is only .306, which is pretty poor.

11

I don’t know if you can say that his public reputation* has been hurt at all, but the sabermetric stuff pretty clearly shows that Nolan Ryan was not an elite pitcher. Hall of Famer, yeah. Inner circle? Not even close.

*(Then again, we’re talking about the same public who left Stan Musial off the All-Century team, so…)

12

Before range factor, Bowa was considered one of the best fielding shortshops of his age. When Bill James introduced the concept – Bowa was still active – one of the big controversies was that it showed him to be just an ordinary shortshop. People even pointed to this as a major flaw in the statistic: “It can’t be any good because it says Bowa is an ordinary shortstop. Everyone knows he’s a great defender.”

As James said at the time, Bowa made every play look good and made few erros, but too many balls got past him because he had a fairly limited range. There was some argument that it was due to the fact that Mike Schmidt was playing next to him, but ultimately, the discussion took down Larry Bowa’s reputation from a great defensive shortshop to an average one.

This chart shows how Bowa’s range factor rated compared to other shortstops. If you compare his ranger factor to league average, his was only 0.26 better. By comparison, Ripkin was 0.55 and Smith was 0.96.

But the numbers don’t tell the story. Before range factor, Bowa was considered one of the best defensive shortstops. James’s analysis took his reputation down quite a bit and he went from being considered the best to just ordinary.

13

Range factor numbers are far more subjective that offensive numbers. An rbi is a stat a 10 year old can follow. But a ground balls speed, bounce and spin are not able to be rated empirically. Then an infielder who plays on carpet has different circumstances than a player on grass. Ozzie played short left / center field. Of course he could go in back of second for true hop ground balls. Trammel could not match that. I understand the stat people are making a mighty stab at rating defense. I just don’t buy it.

14

Steve Garvey was a perrenial MVP contender (won in 1974) based on the traditional metrics of batting average, HR’s, and RBI. When the more sophisticated measurements became available, it was discovered that his On base percentage was weak, and his OPS and OPS+ in his best years weren’t in the top 500 all-time, or really even close.

He rarely walked or sacrificed, he hit into a ton of double plays, and his base stealing was abysmal. The very best parts of his game just happened to be reflected by the least sophisticated of statistics.

15

There’s nothing subjective about range factors – it’s the number of putouts and assists the player gets to in a 9-inning game. In theory, a player who gets to 3 balls per game has more range than one who get to 3 balls a game (assuming they’re playing the same position).

The assumption is that the number of balls hit in a game that a fielder touches are evenly distributed over the course of a season or career. That particular assumption can be attacked – if a team has a lot of right handed fly ball pitchers, then fewer balls will be hit to shortshop compared to a team with a lot of left handed ground ball pitchers. If the player next to you has exceptional range, then your range factor can suffer. It doesn’t really work well for first basemen, since the number of putouts they record is dependent on how well the other infielders field.

It’s certainly not a great statistic; I see it as a intermediate step toward other fielding metrics (though there are so many now that you can pick and choose.

But back when it was first proposed, Larry Bowa became the flashpoint between sabermetrics and traditional baseball statistics. His case was trumpeted as one reason why the new stats were better than the old ones. Fair or not, the stat and the controversy hurt his reputation.