The 2016 Hall of Fame Ballot, Graphically

It's Hall of Fame voting season, so I thought I'd contribute my thoughts to the conversation.  "Best to Worst season WAR" graphs, innovated by Sky Kalkman back when he was providing the sabersphere a "hint of lime," have long been my favorite tool for an initial screen of Hall of Fame candidates, and I used to do an annual post at Beyond the Boxscore looking at each year's ballot.  Let's do it again!

Some quick methods notes: the gray line in the graphs is the "Hall of Fame Zone," which is based on a (now old) study by Jeff Zimmerman, and spans from the 20th percentile Hall of Famer to the 50th percentile Hall of Famer.  There are Hall of Fame players below that line (20% of Hall of Famer seasons, in fact!). Nevertheless, given the occasional questionable decision by the BBWAA, it seems a good benchmark that players should be within or above that zone for at least a good chunk of their careers.  This is not the only thing that matters, and other metrics (like Hall of Stats' Hall Score) are also useful, as are more nuanced investigations of player careers.  But this is still my favorite approach.

Starting Pitchers

There are four starting pitchers on the Hall of Fame ballot this year.  The benchmark for pitchers in the Hall of Fame, based on other pitchers already in the Hall, is a tad lower than it is for position players (~.5 WAR per season of their career).  Nevertheless, it's hard for pitchers to get into the Hall because injuries tend to shorten careers so quickly.

Of the candidates, based strictly on the numbers, three are clearly deserving and, should be shoo-ins: Roger Clemens, Curt Schilling, and Mike Mussina.  Mussina maybe didn't have the fame of the others, but I'm frankly baffled at the pushback that Schilling gets.  As Tom Tango and others have argued, Schilling is the pitcher that voters seemed to think Jack Morris was: he was dominant in the regular season, and just unbelievable in the postseason.  The numbers above don't include his postseason, but between his ridiculous performance for the '01 Diamondbacks (including the World Series MVP) and the whole bloody sock thing for the '04 Red Sox, he really is the consummate postseason ace.  His career line in postseason action?  133 1/3 innings, 2.23 ERA, 8.1:1.7 k/9:bb/9.  Pure dominance.

With Clemens, there is no question about his performance qualifications.  The question is how much we discount his candidacy given his documented use of steroids.  I've gone back and forth on this over the years.  Here are the specific voting criteria specified by the Hall:

Voting shall be based upon the player's record, playing ability, integrity, sportsmanship, character, and contributions to the team(s) on which the player played.

Does a player's use of performance enhancing drugs disqualify them based on "integrity, sportsmanship, and character"?  I definitely see a strong case for this.  At the same time, there are some really despicable characters already in the Hall of Fame (Ty Cobb is the standard example).  And there was rampant drug use throughout the '70's and 80's before steroids started to appear in the game (especially amphetamines), so it's hardly the case that the "steroid" era players were the first to use performance-enhancing substances.  Finally, while we do know that some Hall of Fame-caliber players definitely used (Clemens, Bonds, McGwire), there are a lot of guys who probably also used in that era who we don't know about.  And we can't guess, either: I'm really disturbed by the "witch hunt" that seemingly has been going on, with guys like Jeff Bagwell accused and therefore passed over for the Hall without a shred of evidence.

What I've arrived at is the notion that the Hall of Fame is a museum, and "Hall of Famer" players are those who made the largest impact on the game via their play on the field.  Those impacts don't have to be universally positive.  If that's my definition, then there's no question, in my mind, that Clemens should be inducted.  I'd put him on my ballot.

...Mike Hampton had a few very good years, and was probably an underrated pitcher over his career.  But he seems to fall pretty short of being a Hall of Famer.  So, in summary:

No Doubters:
Roger Clemens
Curt Schilling
Mike Musinna

Hall of Good (not Great):
Mike Hampton

Relief Pitchers

There are three relievers on the ballot: Lee Smith (who is returning), Billy Wagner, and Trevor Hoffman.  For comparison, I've also plotted Hall of Famers Bruce Sutter and Rollie Fingers.

I really don't know what to do with relievers.  As the graph indicates they really just don't pitch enough innings to get anywhere close to the Hall of Fame zone.  Furthermore, in almost all cases, we have a set of players self-selected to be relievers because they weren't good enough to be starting pitchers.  That makes it pretty hard to give them serious consideration.

That said, if you believe that Rollie Fingers deserves to be in the Hall of Fame, then you would be hard-pressed to deny Lee Smith, Trevor Hoffman, or Billy Wagner those same honors.  They were basically all just as successful as the other.  They didn't have Sutter's peak (or, of course, Sutter's inning totals), but they all had greater longevity and were the best at their "position" during much of their careers.  I don't think any of them are shoe-ins, but I can see an argument.

Debatable:
Lee Smith
Billy Wagner
Trevor Hoffman

Position Players

There are a lot of hitters on the ballot, as there are every year.  I'm going to work through them in order of decreasing career WAR, five at a time.

Bonds: See comments above about Clemens.  Except that Bonds is probably the best hitter ever.

I was kind of relieved to see how well Griffey rates out here.  His tenure with the Reds (which is largely at the right tail of his line) was sad and depressing.  But he was so darn good while with the Mariners that he was already pretty much a lock of the Hall before he arrived in Cincinnati.  10 seasons well above the Hall of Fame average makes him an easy pick.

The other slam dunk here is Jeff Bagwell.  Bagwell might not have had the longevity of some players on this list, but he was brilliant throughout his career.  I always remember him as having such an aggressive swing.  He leaned in so much that I always thought he was off-balance.  And yet, he walked a ton, and struck out at a pretty low rate for a player with so much power.

Alan Trammell's is almost a carbon-copy of Barry Larkin's career.  He was on the ballot before Larkin arrived, and they both deserve to be in the Hall.  Barry got in.  But this is Trammell's last chance (to be voted in, at least).

The only player on this list who is a little bit questionable, maybe, is Larry Walker.  Walker had those two brilliant years, and was usually near the performance of the other guys.  But his #3 through #7 seasons were just very good, not great.  But despite his reputation for being fragile, he had longevity: his 8th-best season, which was still pushing 5 WAR, was right-on Hall of Fame average, and he stuck there the rest of his career.  If you push some of those peak year WAR into the #3-#7 seasons, his line might look a bit more compelling.  I just don't think there's much of a counter-argument here.

Here we start to get into eyebrow-raising territory.  For me, the best 10 years of a players' career are the most important.  By those criteria, Edgar Martinez clearly has an above-average case, as does...Jim Edmonds?  There's a lot of chatter about Edmonds right now, because he doesn't seem to be getting a lot of support among writers.  But while the lower-tier seasons of his career aren't where one might want them, his 10-best (well, 9-best, anyway), are solidly in or above the Hall of Fame zone.  It's fashionable among Reds fans to hate the guy, but he was a heck of a player and has a very solid Hall of Fame case.  One of the highlights of my move out to Arizona in 2001 was catching a game in St. Louis and watching him lay to steal a long drive in center field.  I've kinda always liked him.  ::shrug::

Mark McGwire has the controversy due to his PED use, but at least he's admitted it and tried to move on.  His career is a lot like Edmonds', and his home run chase in '98, even despite the subsequent steroid scandal, still did more good for baseball than anything else I've personally ever seen.

Tim Raines is a sabermetric darling, mostly because he made such an impact on several important Expos fans and superb sabermetricians, most notably including Tom Tango.  His peak was very good, and he had the longevity.  The middle-tier of his career wasn't quite there, though.  He reminds me a lot of Larry Walker, at least in terms of overall numbers and shape of his curve.  It's a solid case, but not a slam dunk.

That leaves Gary Sheffield, and he's the first who is probably best labeled "debatable."  He had tremendous longevity, but his peak years rate out as being around the 25th to 30th percentile Hall of Famer.  So, maybe?

Mike Piazza was a very near miss last year, and seems to be getting a lot of support this voting season.  But by these numbers, at least, he is not overly compelling.  The Hall of Stats gives catchers a substantial boost by default, because otherwise the demands of the position prevent them from posting totals that keep up with other positions.  They don't play as many games per season, and they don't play as many years...or if they do, they age faster.  Plus, we don't have data on some of the things that Piazza might have done well (e.g. was he a good framer?  Was he, as I've heard argued more recently, a great game-caller?), so this might be underrating him.  Still, I don't think I'd rate him better than "solid."

Similar to Piazza's curve is Slammin' Sammy Sosa's.  Sosa had the better peak season, but otherwise Piazza's line matches Sammy's very well.  I'm not willing to give Sosa quite as much benefit of doubt, however, because I feel like we probably had a better read on his fielding.

Garciaparra is such an interesting case.  He's a little bit like Ernie Banks in that he had a wonderful part to his career that lasted about 6 seasons (Banks lasted about 7, and peaked better), but then a huge drop-off in his production afterward.  If you're someone who puts almost all the emphasis on the peak 5 seasons, I can see an argument for Nomar.  But I think he's probably falling a tad short for me, given how bad he was outside of his peak.

Jeff Kent and Fred McGriff are also, I think, falling just a tad short.  Both were very, very good players for a long time.  But I think they don't quite make my Hall of Fame.

I'm surprised every time I see Troy Glaus's almost-8 win season.  But while he was a very good third baseman, he didn't quite reach Hall of Fame standing, much like the other players on these two graphs.

So, to summarize the hitters:

No Doubters
Barry Bonds
Ken Griffey Jr.
Jeff Bagwell

Clearly Deserving
Alan Trammell
Larry Walker
Edgar Martinez
Jim Edmonds
Mark McGwire

Solid case
Tim Raines
Mike Piazza

Debatable
Gary Sheffield
Sammy Sosa
Nomar Garciaparra

My Hall of Fame Ballot

The current Hall of Fame ballot still only permits 10 entries.  I have six guys who are no-doubters on this list, so that's not good news.  But here's what I'd do, if I had a vote (ranked in a rough order):

1. Barry Bonds
2. Roger Clemens
3. Ken Griffey Jr.
4. Jeff Bagwell
5. Curt Schilling
6. Mike Mussina
7. Alan Trammell
8. Edgar Martinez
9. Larry Walker
10. Jim Edmonds

McGwire gets squeezed...and I won't lie that part of the reason for that is the steroid thing.  Push comes to shove, I guess PED's do matter to me, at least as a tiebreaker.

If I had a bit more space, I'd go:

11. Mark McGwire
12. Tim Raines
13. Mike Piazza

Given how many are on this ballot already, I'm inclined to leave off those I flagged as "debatable," which includes all of the relievers.  Great players, all, but I can't vote for everybody.

Of those on this list, six were on my ballot when I last did this for the 2011 ballot: Bagwell, Trammell, Martinez, McGwire, Raines, and Walker.  Time to get your act together, BBWAA!

2015 Reds Team Projections

Here's a look at the team projections from BPro and FanGraphs.  We'll go alphabetically:

Baseball Prospectus NL Central Projections

Well, that's ducky.  Baseball Prospectus sees the Cardinals as the clear favorite in the division (a 5-game lead is quite a bit in a team projection), with the Cubs playing second-fiddle, and the rest of the teams more or less equivalent to one another.  The Reds are projected to have the worst offense in the division, by a significant margin, but a fine defense that leads to good run prevention.

Here are PECOTA-projected run scored and runs allowed, after park adjustments, for all NL teams:

In this graph, the best teams are in the bottom-right.  The top-left is a bad place to be, and it's inhabited by four teams that are widely expected to struggle.  The only thing keeping the Reds out of the top-left, as it turns out, is their fielding: the Reds have the second-best fielding projection in the NL, and it pulls their overall defense (pitching + fielding) down into the better-than-average area.

The Dodgers look really good, don't they?  Washington Nationals check in as the best pitching-and-defense by a hair on the strength of their rotation, whereas the Cardinals should have the best offense of any team not called the Dodgers.  I think the Pirates are interesting here: PECOTA likes their offense a lot, but has major concerns about their ability to hold their opponents in check.  After park adjustments, they have the second-worst pitching-and-fielding combination in the league, behind only the Rockies.

The surprise might be the Cubs, who, along with the much-improved Padres, edge their way into the "good" quadrant by projecting as slightly better than average on offense and defense.  With their offseason additions, and with their young players starting to take MLB jobs, they are probably the most interesting team to watch in our division (<-yes a="" bit="" hey="" hurts="" it="" nbsp="" p="" re="" scary.="" that="" to="" write="">

FanGraphs NL Central Projections

Things aren't a lot rosier when it comes to the FanGraphs projections.  Actually, they're worse.  FanGraphs sees the Central a lot closer to a three-team race, with the Pirates getting a five-game jump on this system to be right in the thick of it with the Cardinals and Cubs.  The Brewers and Reds are ranked a distant 4th and 5th, respectively.

Here are the pythags:

Sigh.  Minor note: the projected run environment is a tad lower with FanGraphs, averaging 640 runs per team instead of 653 runs per team.

In any case, FanGraphs is not quite as bullish on the Reds' ability to prevent runs as BPro, while being just as pessimistic on their ability to generate runs.  As with BPro, FanGraphs sees the Reds' fielding as superb, +22 runs above average.  But their pitching isn't rated quite as highly, which means overall they are pegged as a slightly below-average defense coupled with a well below-average offense--and that's even WITH Joey Votto projected to get 550 PA's, which seems darn optimistic to me right now.

Some other interesting things: FanGraphs likes the Cardinals' and Pirates run prevention a LOT more than BPro.  Pittsburgh elevates all the way to average run prevention.  Meanwhile, the Cardinals vault into the exhaulted well-above-average territory, inching toward the Dodgers and Nationals in the "Uber-team" category.  Meanwhile, the Cubs stay right where they were, again looking like a legitimate threat in the Central.

Take-Aways

Team-level projections have huge error bars around them because you more or less compound all of the error on teach player projection to sum it up to the team level.

But they are identifying some important problems for team, even if it's healthy.  They're going to be playing 1-2 position players who are arguably not deserving of starting jobs in Byrd and Cozart.  Their bench is basically a collection of replacement players, and provides little depth outside of Eugenio Suarez (if he even gets to play).  The rotation isn't what it was when the 2012-2013 Mat Latos was here, and again offers little depth after the first few guys.  And the bullpen could be Aroldis Chapman and a bunch of replacement guys.  And these projections assume that everyone is more or less healthy, which is far from certain.

There's a brighter, rosier side to each of those arguments.  The fan in me wants to protest on most of those points.  I want to believe that Jay Bruce is going to bounce back.  I want to buy into a lot of our bullpen arms, and I certainly like Mike Leake a lot more than FanGraphs does.  And I take some heart in that no position is projected to be replacement level, unlike last year's left field situation.

Still, whereas last season I was still pretty optimistic about the Reds despite mediocre projections, this season I'm probably more pessimistic than optimistic.  This feels more like the seasons when I broke in as a Reds blogger, extolling the offensive virtues of Rich Aurilia, than things did during the 2010-2013 seasons.

In a way, it's sort of relaxing.  I'm excited for baseball this season, and I don't feel like I'm setting myself up to have my heart broken by this team.  I'll cheer them on, and watch their progress with interest.  And who knows?  Maybe they'll still surprise.

How Many Runs Makes a Win?

I'm sort of gearing up to do some historical work on the Reds (I hope!).  One of the questions I wanted to answer was how many runs equals a win.  We did something like this in SABR 101x, but something about the algebra didn't seem right at the time, and the estimates we were finding seemed low.

In any case, I decided to instead generate this estimate in a fairly inelegant way called the "+1 method" (mentioned here by Patriot, though in a different context).  The approach is:

1. For each year in baseball history, find the average PythagenPat record based on average runs scored and runs allowed per team.  This will, obviously, be a 0.500 record, unless there is a clerical error.
2. For each year, find the expected PythagenPat record if you add 1 run scored to the average team.  This will be, barely, a 0.500+ record.
3. Figure the expected number of wins each year based on those two records.  This will vary depending on the number of games, and, of course, the expected record.
4. Calculate the difference between the "0.500 record" wins and the ".500 record +1 run" wins.  This gives you the wins per run.
5. Take the reciprocal of wins per run.  This is runs per win.

I actually added 0.1 runs instead of 1 run, just to avoid changing the run environment.  It probably doesn't matter.  I also tried it using +1 run allowed or -1 run scored, and it really didn't change the estimates.

Here are the results!

In addition to my run per win estimate (the blue line), I've also added straight-up total runs scored per game (i.e. runs scored + runs allowed for each game).  In the past, I've advocated just using total runs scored per game as a shorthand for the runs per win estimate.  You can see that it tracks pretty well (although it consistently underestimates the correct number over most of baseball history.

To get away from the noise of the 1800's, let's just look at the live ball era:

Ok, so from this you can see that runs per win (again, focus on the blue line) tracks between 9 and 10 runs pretty consistently.  But it definitely does vary with run environment.  As runs per game increases (orange line), so too does the number of runs you need to score to win a game.  That makes sense.

When I was working on my player value series, and as the WAR frameworks at FanGraphs and Baseball Reference were being developed in the mid-2000's, you often heard people say that 10 runs = 1 win.  That was pretty much true from 1993-2009.  But as the run environment has plummeted over the past several years (the strikeout era?), the runs needed per win has decreased as well.  In 2013, I have it at 9.07 runs per game.  It's a small thing, but something to keep in mind as we look at different eras over baseball history.

Also, different leagues unquestionably differ in runs per win.  The AL should always require more runs per win than the NL, at least since the debut of the designated hitter.  But I just wanted a blanket per-year conversion, so...

I'm sure these numbers are available elsewhere, but for those interested I'm posting a spreadsheet with these data on google docs.  If you use those data for a project that is published somewhere, please link back to this post.  All data pulled from the Lahman Database.

Reds History, Graphically

I had a fun idea for a graphic that summarized the Reds' regular season winning percentages, playoff appearances, and top players over their history.  Here is the result:

You can click it to make it larger.

Some Takeaways:

Winning Teams

Based on a five-year moving average, the Reds have had six collections of winning teams: the late 1890's, the late 1910's-1920's, the late-30's-early-40's, the teams of the 60's and 70's, the 1990's, and the current 2010+ teams.  All but one of these winning stretches have at least produced one playoff appearance.  The playoffs weren't a thing in the 1800's, although the Reds never finished in first place in the National League until 1919.  Of the successful stretches of Reds teams during times when the World Series was an annual event, only the current incarnation has not won a World Series.

The highest winning percentage in Reds' history is not the Big Red Machine's peak in 1975, but rather the 1919 Reds team that won the World Series in the Black Sox scandal.  They went 96-44 (.686 WPct in 140 games).  That was a brilliant team, and the fact that their victory was tainted by what happened with the Black Sox just make that episode all the more irritating.  There's no reason to think that they couldn't have won that series anyway.

For the stat-minded Big Red machine fan, though, fear not: the 1975 Reds have the best PythagenPat winning percentage in Reds history (their mark of .662 just edged out the 1919 team's .654 PythagenPat).  The best PythagenPat winning percentage for the current Reds' squad was last year, 2013, at .576 (2010: .567; 2012: .558).

Losing Teams

The Reds have also have really only gone through four extended stretches as losing teams.  These include the 1900's, the 1930's, the mid-40's/early 50's, and then Jim Bowden-era from the late 1990's through the 2000's.

Great Players

I listed the top-26 players by rWAR (courtesey of Baseball Gauge).  I would have included more, but I ran out of space (sorry, Frank McCormick!).  Not surprisingly, the 1960's and 1970's, the most successful stretch in Reds history, were home to a lot of the great players from the Reds' past.  But I was surprised at how many of the great Reds players appeared not just during the peaks in the 20's and late 30's (as would be expected), but also during the big swoon in the early 30's.  That said, when you look at it, most of those greats were either finishing up their careers, or just starting out during that time...and many of them were responsible for the successes of 1938-1944.  I'm looking forward to digging into those teams a bit more.

The Cost of the Strikes

In 1981, because of a player strike, MLB played a shortened season.  And for some reason, the justification for which seems lost to history, they opted to take the winners of the first half and the second half as the teams that made the playoffs.  Meanwhile, the Reds, who had the best record in their division overall, went home in October.

In 1994, the Reds were in first place when the season ended, again due to a player strike.  That team would repeat their success and go to the playoffs in 1995, but it's hard not to wonder what might have been.

I tend to side with players over owners most of the time these days when it comes to financial disputes. I might not like that players make bazillions of times more money than people who do more important work outside the entiertainment industry.  But society has made its choices on how it spends its money, and I'd much rather the players share in those profits than it stay in the pockets of owners.  That all said, the strikes have come at awful times for the Reds.

Afterthought: I have no memory of writing it, but I found this somewhat similar post from 2009 after writing this article.  Funny when that happens!

Chapman abandons change (mostly)

So, less than two weeks ago, I wrote about how Aroldis Chapman's improvement this year can arguably be traced to the debut of his change-up.  Well, as Jeff Sullivan noted, almost coinciding with when I wrote that, Chapman now seems to be moving away from using his change-up.  In fact, he's thrown the pitch in only 1 of the last 5 games, and 2 of the last 8:

The reason appears to be that he has a hard time throwing the change-up for strikes.

The good news was that while he was not throwing it for strikes, he was usually missing down (assuming he was even trying to get it in the zone).  Nevertheless, it does look like the pitch has fallen out of favor.  So much for my last piece on him! :)

I personally hope that he can continue to work it in, even as a show-me pitch.  Hitters can catch up to his fastball if they know that it is coming.  The slider is a fantastic pitch, and I'm sure he can be quite successful as a fastball/slider reliever.  But a third pitch against right-handers, at least, would be one additional thing that hitters need to keep in their minds as they step in to face him.

Reprints: How Hitting Statistics Explain Runs Scored

This week in the SABR101x course, we're covering hitting statistics.  The lesson was very similar to an article I wrote 6 years ago on this site comparing the ability of different offensive stats to predict runs scored (many others have written such articles; it's a classic approach to addressing the question of hitting stat quality).

In it, I argued that there wasn't much of a problem to using OPS if it improved communication because the gains from it to other, better stats (like wOBA) were so meager.  Fortunately, in the time since, FanGraphs has popularized wOBA so much that I feel pretty comfortable just reporting it and ignoring OPS altogether.  And in many cases, I've even moved on to using wRC+ to get the advantages of park controls and run environment-neutrality.  OPS just isn't necessary anymore.

In any case, I thought it would be fun to reproduce that article here.  Here's the most relevant graph.  The rest appears below the jump.

Selling Jeans: Ballplayer Height, Weight, and BMI

So, my question for today is: how have the physical attributes of ballplayers changed over the years?  Let's look at this graphically.

Player Height

I'm reporting all dates as birth year, as that seemed a logical way of organization players.  I'm also throwing out the edges of the database that contain fewer than 50 players per birth year.  That means, for recent years, I'm not including anyone born after 1990 (i.e. 24 years old in 2014).

We can see that, after an initial surge of the extremely short in late-1880's ball as baseball became more professional and required players to be top athletes, average player height quickly reached 70 inches (5'10", aka jinaz-standard height) and then progressively have gotten taller, on average, as a group.  Currently, baseball players average just shy of 74" (6'2").

No real surprises here.  Thanks to some combination of improved diet, sanitation, medicine, and social programs, average human height has increased four inches in the past 100 years, and ballplayers are right on track with that increase:

Furthermore, major league baseball players tend to be taller than the average population.  Current average height is 5'10", while ballplayers today average 6'2".  Among those born in the 1920's, average height was around 170 cm on this graph (67", or 5'7"), while baseball players.averaged 5'10".

Weight

This one's a bit more interesting:

So, we have a steady increase to 1920, then a slight increase that follows height...and then BOOM, something happens.  Weight shoots from 188 lbs to 206 lbs in a matter of 13 years (1965-1979 birth years).  That corresponds to players who played their age-27 years between 1992 and 2006.  What gives?

Before we address that question, let's first look at one more graph

Body Mass Index

So here, we're seeing a metric that tracks both height and weight in the same number.  And again, we're seeing a steady drop in BMI as the game becomes professional, a flat-lined BMI for many decades, and then a spike again once we hit 1965 babies.

The knee-jerk reaction is to claim that this matches up pretty well with the PED era.  There are no clear fenceposts for when that era began and ended, but I tend to think of the steroid era running from around 1994 (the year of The Strike) until the advent of MLB's testing program in 2003.  The steep part of the slope begins and ends, more or less, with players who peaked during that period of time (1992 through 2006).

The interesting thing is that it hasn't really dropped that much since MLB started its testing program.  Average weight of players has decreased slightly since its peak in 1982 babies (208.7 lbs) through 1989 babies (205 lbs).  Height has also dropped slightly during that time (0.3 inches), so BMI changes very little in that time.  That span describes players who are currently ages 25-33.  These are players that, by and large, have played their careers during a setting in which drug testing was a thing.  And yet, while they've declined, we're a far cry from where we might expect to be before that spike.  If the spike in weight and BMI occurred due to steroids taking over the game, and if the current testing program works well enough that steroids are now largely NOT a part of the game, we'd predict weight and BMI to return to pre-steroid levels.

My feeling is that some of this could be steroids.  But I think there's two other, important factors that could be involved:

1. A shift in training regimes of players: an emphasis on being bigger, stronger, and faster through weight lifting and nutrition...and for scouts to prefer bigger players.
2. An influx of international talent (including lots of big guys) that push up the pool of available talent.  If you have more players available to choose from, and baseball favors larger humans, you'll be able to shift up the averages by casting a larger net when selecting players.

The latter one seems like it could be a big deal, and I can think of a few ways to test it.  But I'll need to sharpen up my database skills a bit better to do so. :)

Thoughts?

WAR Graphs for Pitchers

David Appleman made a neat new addition over at FanGraphs: WAR Graphs for Pitchers!

Here's one:

Source: FanGraphs -- Jose Rijo, Jack Armstrong, Tom Browning
These are one of my favorite tools for evaluating player careers, especially for questions about hall of fame eligibility.  Therefore, it's very nice to have FanGraphs making it so easy to produce them.  The only wish I have was that we had a choice of WAR metrics: their standard FIP-based WAR, and RA/9 WAR.

MLB Strikeouts Rising, Walks Not

One of the things I meant to address in my piece on strikeout rate last Thursday (but forgot!) was the fact that strikeouts are up across the board.  There's been a lot of discussion of this year's spike: MLB-average strikeout rate has cleared 20% for the first time (at least as far back as I've looked at it), and is now at 20.5%.  It was 19.9% last season.

This spike is not a new trend, however:

I just went back to 1980, but strikeouts have been consistently on the rise over the last 35 years (at least).  The slope has been particularly steep since 2006, and has increased every year by an average of 0.5%.

Interestingly, walk rate has simultaneously been almost flat.  This comes despite the fact that on-base percentage has become so much more heavily emphasized in the game over that stretch.

The question, of course, is what's causing the surge in strikeout rate.  Are hitters steadily becoming more willing to trade contact for power?  They could also be biasing toward taking more pitches, but if that were true one would expect walk rates to also increase.

Or is it the pitchers who are just becoming better and better, leaving hitters in the dust?  Or a bit of both?

Furthermore, when is this trend going to slow down?  It might not slow, without action by major league baseball.  This was the subject of a recent roundtable discussion on Effectively Wild.  I think there's a legitimate argument that MLB might need to follow Brian Bannister's suggestion and lower the pitching mound.  Otherwise, we're on pace to see strikeouts occur in one out of four plate appearances by the middle of the next decade.  Yikes.

Joey Votto is speaking my language

Despite a rough time in Kansas City a few years ago, Eno Sarris has been turning in some amazing content that blends interviews with analysis in recent months.  One of his best yet (#fanbias) was this piece on Joey Votto and his hitting approach that appeared yesterday at FanGraphs.  Votto notes that he thinks he actually was swinging too much in the strike zone last season.

Take, for example, his command of the strike zone. Some in Cincinnati were beating the drum for Joey Votto to swing at more pitches. Even his General Manager commented that he might benefit from swinging at more pitches with men on base. Too bad. Votto saw things a little differently: “I swung too much in the strike zone last year.” 

In general, Votto has swung less at pitches inside the zone as his career has progressed — 73.4% over his first four years, 66% over his last three. And in general, his contact on pitches inside the zone has increased, if marginally — 83.9% his first four years, up to 86% the last three. So when he says that he’ll swing less in the strike zone this year, he’s talking about really swinging at the pitches he wants to make contact on. In other words, he’d like to be “more in that [Joe] Mauer category, really efficient, swinging at a really low rate inside the strike zone, and outside the strike zone, very rarely swinging.” Nobody swings less than Joe Mauer.

Eno does a great job of breaking all of this down, but I thought I'd offer a graph.

So.  Yep!  Swing rate at balls in the zone has declined, until last season.  Also, this:

So, overall, Votto has trended toward fewer swings overall.  But while he kept his amazing ability to avoid swinging at balls out of the strike zone last season (tied for 5th overall in MLB), Votto increased his swing rate slightly last year because he was offering at more pitches that were in the zone.

As Eno noted, Votto has seen a slight uptick in his contact rates as a result of being more selective in the zone.  And while we know his contact rate, we don't know the quality of that contact, so perhaps that would show even better returns for Votto's increased selectivity.  But there is a counter to this: Votto had his best offensive season in 2010.  Therefore, if he's shifted his approach since that time, he might be shifting away from what is optimal in terms of his production.

My take is this: the physical tools of a hitter changes as he ages.  Votto is 30 years old, and it's possible that some of the talent that permitted him to do what he did in 2010 isn't with him anymore.  Votto has shown an uncanny ability to make adjustments to maximize the value of whatever capabilities he has at the time (think the 2012 playoffs when he did nothing but walk due to his injured knee).  I trust him to adopt the approach that will maximize his value.  This is a guy who has been worth 25 fangraphs WAR over the past 4 years, and that's after losing about 2.5 WAR for his fielding.  He's a fantastic player.

Before I close, another bit from Eno's article I just loved:

And if the idea is to move him in the order to a spot that fits him better, Votto was contrite: “I don’t care.” He admitted that he knew “a guy like Tango” would say to hit him second or fourth, but as long as Votto is near the top somewhere, he doesn’t care. A guy with a “high career ISO” like himself would probably be a little more valuable somewhere outside of the leadoff spot, but that’s for the manager to decide, and where he is in the lineup hasn’t mattered to him in the past.

Exactly. Honestly, I think this is the first player--heck, this is the first person on the field, managers included--that I've ever seen that is aware of Tom Tango by name, much less he and his co-authors' work on lineups.

Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go order a Joey Votto jersey...

2010 Reds Draft Review

Thundering Turtle at Red Reporter has an amazing review of the players that the Reds drafted this week.  I just wanted to take a shot at couple "visuals" of the draft, based on his work.

First, drafted players by position.  Key: P=SP, R=reliever, 1=1B, 2=2B, 3=3B, S=SS, O=OF, C=C.  If there's question, I listed a player by his "more valuable" position.  This includes a lot of pitchers who may be starters but are probably actually going to end up relievers.

PORP23ROPRPSRRPPSRPPPPP1P22OP3RPOOCPOOP3PCSOP32RPP

I haven't looked at a lot of drafts this way, but this looks like a pitching-heavy draft to me (pitchers shown in red).  Here's the breakdown by position:

SP (P) = 20
RP (R) = 8 (including at least 3 of the first 10)
C = 2
1B = 1
2B = 4
3B = 4
SS = 3
OF = 8

1B's are generally only drafted if they can hit, so we don't have a lot of pure hitters in this draft (if any).  The #2 pick (Gabriel Rosa OF) and the #5 pick (Ryan Wright 2B) are probably the best--Wright is reportedly an offense-oriented second baseman.  In a sense, this is a good thing: guys that start on the left side of the defensive spectrum can move to "easier" positions if their bat develops, but 1B's do not move up.


What about HS vs College?  Here's a list on the pitchers:

HCCCCCHCCHHCCCCCHCHCCCCHHCCH

So the Reds started with a high-school arm, but then definitely leaned college most of the rest of the way.  I think it's probably normal to draft more college arms over the full draft.  There were a few HS players taken late as possible over-slot guys.

Hitters:

HCCCHHHCCC?CCCCHCHCHHHC

The ? is Yordanyz Perez, a 27-year old Cuban outfielder.

The Reds seemed to go pretty even between college and high school in early rounds, lean college in middle rounds, and then go high-school in late rounds.

Reds WAR Review: Catchers

Bubbles Hargrave is probably the 4th-best catcher in Reds history. I hadn't heard of him. Yes, I'm lame. Image via Wikipedia

At BtB, I've started a series of recaps looking at the most valuable players at each position of all time, as measured by Rally's WAR database. Since I'm a Reds fan, I'm going to do a mirrored series here looking at past Reds greats. It will be a great way to help me learn some Reds history, and has the added bonus of keeping my mind off the current Reds team's woes.

Keep in mind a few caveats: the WAR values you see here are only for those seasons (or partial-seasons) players spent with the Reds. Second, WAR is not a perfect measure of value (I think it is the best available stat of its kind). And third, even if WAR was perfect in measuring what it tries to, career WAR value is necessarily the best way to evaluate who is the "best" player (i.e. peak seasons matter just as much as total career value when deciding things like that).

We'll begin the series with a Top-10 list of Reds catchers!

10. Ivey Wingo.

Debut	Seasons	PA	Offense	wOBA	FldRns	Fld/700PA	PosAdj	WAR	WAR/700PA
1915	13	3302	-63	0.313	-5	-1	48	7.3	1.5

This is the kind of lousy Reds fan I am: Wingo played in the second-most seasons by any Reds catcher, and ranks third in PA's among any Reds catcher. And I had never heard of the guy. Wingo wasn't a particularly great player (tied for lowest WAR/yr rate of anyone in the top-18 Reds catchers), but he played a long time, and at his retirement held the NL record for most games caught. His best year with the Reds was in 1917, when he hit 0.266/0.311/0.376 in 432 PA's in a league that averaged 0.249/0.305/0.328. That was good for a half-win above average, which translates to 2.3 wins above replacement that year. His tenure with the club included an appearance in the Reds' 1919 World Championship team, which (in)famously defeated the "Black Sox" that year. He also served as manager of the Reds for two whole games during the 1916 season, nestled between the managerial careers of Buck Herzog and Christy Mathewson. Wingo ended his career with the Reds.


9. Smoky Burgess. Reds Hall of Fame.

Debut	Seasons	PA	Offense	wOBA	FldRns	Fld/700PA	PosAdj	WAR	WAR/700PA
1955	4	1227	22	0.356	0	0	13	8	4.6

The fun thing about team lists like this, and part of the reason I'm only doing a top-10 list, is that you get players making your top-10 who only played for the Reds for a few years, sometimes as a reserve--but were really good players during their time. Burgess is our first example of this. He was a very good player over a long career, and ranks 27th among MLB catchers in WAR overall. He played four of those seasons with the Reds, and put up outstanding numbers despite serving as the reserve/platoon partner for C Ed Bailey during three of those four years. As a hitter, he hit for good power, fine average, and walking at twice the rate he struck out. His 0.356 wOBA (which is park- and era-adjusted) ranks 4th-best among Reds catchers with more than 50 PA's.

He is also one of just four catchers to be elected into the Reds Hall of Fame (curiously, Bailey is not one of them). How that happened is somewhat inexplicable to me. Chris Eckes of the Reds passed on a bit of info via Greg in Atlanta on this: Burgess was elected in 1975, his 4th year on the ballot, edging out deadball era one year wonder Cy Seymour by just 800 votes. Apparently, it was just a weak year!


8. Johnny Edwards.

Debut	Seasons	PA	Offense	wOBA	FldRns	Fld/700PA	PosAdj	WAR	WAR/700PA
1961	7	2624	-53	0.312	4	1	44	8.2	2.2

Edwards broke in with the Reds and played as their starting catcher for six seasons before losing his job to a rookie. I'm sure that stung, but at least he can take heart knowing now that the rookie would go on to become the best catcher in MLB history. For his part, though, Edwards was an average-fielding backstop who put up four decent seasons of performance from 1962-1965 before falling off a cliff in 1966. 1963 and 1965 were 3-WAR seasons, but he fell apart and posted -0.5 WAR seasons in '66 and '67. Hard to keep your job doing that. In his best year, Edwards hit 0.267/0.353/0.474, showing nice power in slugging 17 home runs. He was traded for Pat Corrales in 1968.

7. Ray Mueller.

Debut	Seasons	PA	Offense	wOBA	FldRns	Fld/700PA	PosAdj	WAR	WAR/700PA
1943	6	1864	2	0.336	9	3	16	9.2	3.5

Mueller is #7 on our list due to a pair of three-WAR seasons and one other decent season. He came to the Reds after missing the '41 & '42 seasons following his time with the Pirates (possibly military service? Anyone know?). He is best known for catching 233 consecutive games during the '43, '44, and '46 seasons for the Reds (he did miss 1945 while serving in the Army). Mueller had a little bit of power, but his best offensive asset was his ability to get on base. During his years with the Reds, Mueller walked as much as he struck out, which helped him post back to back seasons with ~a 0.350 OBP. Being incredibly durable, at least for a few seasons, didn't hurt either.

6. Tommy Clarke.

Debut	Seasons	PA	Offense	wOBA	FldRns	Fld/700PA	PosAdj	WAR	WAR/700PA
1909	9	1935	7	0.339	5	2	37	10.6	3.8

Clarke overlapped with Ivey Wingo during the second half of his tenure with the Reds, but Clarke spent almost his entire career with the Reds and posted above-average offensive performance over that time. As a late-dead ball era hitter, I have a hard time evaluating his individual strengths and weaknesses. But while Clarke didn't seem to have much if any power, he seems similar to Mueller in that he excelled at getting on base, posting a 0.351 career OBP. Also, if his BR Wiki page is any indication, he sounds like he was a pretty fiesty individual.

5. Heinie Peitz.

Debut	Seasons	PA	Offense	wOBA	FldRns	Fld/700PA	PosAdj	WAR	WAR/700PA
1896	9	2949	-11	0.331	18	4	42	14.2	3.4

Heinie is our only 1800's player in the top-10, and ranks as the 5th-most valuable catcher in Reds' history. He joined the Reds in a trade prior to the 1896 season, and went on to be their starting catcher until he was traded to the Pirates in 1905. Just shy of an average hitter and an apparently competant fielder, he played a lot during his career with the Reds, which is a big part of how he got to this spot on our list. He also played all over the diamond: most of his starts were at catcher, but he played first, second, third, and even pitched on a few occasions

4. Bubbles Hargrave. Reds Hall of Fame

Debut	Seasons	PA	Offense	wOBA	FldRns	Fld/700PA	PosAdj	WAR	WAR/700PA
1921	8	2605	75	0.368	2	1	23	18	4.8

The Reds have had some great names playing the two position: Ivey, Heinie, Smokey, Admiral...but no one can top Bubbles (though it was apparently a rather cruel nickname that referenced his stutter). But he was more than a name--he was an excellent ballplayer. Aside from Burgess, Hargrave is the first clearly above-average hitter on the list. He started behind the plate for 8 seasons following his arrival in 1921. Hargrave won a batting title in 1926, a season in which he posted a .406 OBP. But his best season was in 1923, when he hit 0.333/0.419/0.521, good for 4.6 wins above replacement. He received MVP consideration in three consecutive seasons from 1925-1927, and ended with a career line of 0.314/0.377/0.461 with the Reds.

3. Ed Bailey.

Debut	Seasons	PA	Offense	wOBA	FldRns	Fld/700PA	PosAdj	WAR	WAR/700PA
1953	9	2576	24	0.346	38	10	38	19.4	5.3

Bailey might not have been the hitter that Hargrave was, Bailey was an excellent fielder. In fact, on a per-PA (or inning played, if you like) basis, Bailey has better fielding numbers than any catcher in the top-25 Reds catcher list. Yes, that includes Johnny Bench. Bailey was also a fine hitter in his own right, with good power (28 HR in 1956) and strong on base skills, posting a career line (or close to it) of 0.261/0.359/0.438 with the Reds. Bailey was a 5-time All Star (4 with the Reds), so he clearly was recognized at the time as among the game' elite. Why isn't he in the Hall of Fame, despite his backup/platoon partner Smokey Burgess's membership? My guess is that it's bias against low-batting average players. More on Bailey below.

2. Ernie Lombardi. Reds Hall of Fame.

Debut	Seasons	PA	Offense	wOBA	FldRns	Fld/700PA	PosAdj	WAR	WAR/700PA
1932	10	4277	114	0.366	-16	-3	35	27.1	4.4

When Bubbles Hargrave left the team after the 1928 season, the Reds didn't have to wait long for their next great catcher. Lombardi arrived in 1932 and was heralded as one of the better hitters of his time. He was a two-time batting champion, including the 1938 season in which he was voted league MVP. He also played in seven all-star games and in two world series--the Reds won one of them (over DET in 1940). Lombardi had good power, routinely posting between 10 and 20 home runs each season. And he walked his share, while hitting for excellent average. But while he was an excellent hitter, both Hargrave and Bailey posted better WAR rates. What made Lombardi special is that on top of all of his other accomplishments, he played a ton during his 10 seasons with the Reds, at least by catcher standards. He played at least 107 games every year with the Reds (average=120), and averaged 420 PA's per year during that time. He ended up with almost 1000 more PA's than Ivey Wingo, who received the third-most PA's of a Reds catcher. Lombardi ranks 20th on the all-time list of MLB catchers.

1. Johnny Bench. Baseball Hall of Fame.

Debut	Seasons	PA	Offense	wOBA	FldRns	Fld/700PA	PosAdj	WAR	WAR/700PA
1967	17	8568	253	0.369	71	6	98	71.3	5.8

Surprise! Bench rates as the best catcher in MLB history, at least based on WAR. Here's what I wrote about him at BtB:

As a Reds fan I'm biased, but I think if you were to ask a large number of fans the name of the best catcher ever, Johnny Bench's name would be at the top of the poll. It's not a slam dunk, but Bench comes out four wins above Fisk--and Bench had 1200 fewer PA's and a much higher peak. Bench was a brilliant defender, but probably not the best defensive catcher of all time. And he was a superb hitter, but is probably not the best hitting catcher of all time. What sets him apart is that he was extremely good at both offense and defense: with game-changing defense and prodigious power, he redefined his position. No other catcher has ever hit 45 home runs in a season, and only one other Mike Piazza) has topped the 40-mark twice. He was Rookie of the Year, a two-time MVP (second only to Berra), a 14-time All Star (13 consecutive), and the winner of 10 consecutive gold gloves. He was the best of the best, and I'm proud that he played for my team...it's nice to be proud of something these days.

Graphics

Reds Catcher Timeline

Below is a graph of total WAR from Reds catchers (primary position only) since 1890. The line is a 10-year moving average.

Striking that since Bench retired, the Reds haven't had a long-term, quality catcher. Best year was 2005 with the LaRue/Valentin combo. Catcher is clearly a position at which the Reds have historically been strong, at least going back to Hargrave. Who will be the next great Reds catcher?

WAR Career Trajectory Graph

Here are the four Reds Hall of Fame catchers, plus Ed Bailey.

Bench was obviously the best, but the most interesting thing to me about this graph is the Bailey/Lombardi comparison. Lombardi was much more productive over his full career. But during their best five seasons, Bailey was probably Lombardi's equal. Bailey should be in the Reds Hall of Fame, at least by my judgment.

Top-25 Reds Catchers, by WAR

Table is sortable--click on the header by which you wish to sort!

Rank	Name	Debut	Seasons	PA	Offense	wOBA	FldRns	Fld/700PA	PosAdj	WAR	WAR/700PA
1	Bench, Johnny	1967	17	8568	253	0.369	71	6	98	71.3	5.8
2	Lombardi, Ernie	1932	10	4277	114	0.366	-16	-3	35	27.1	4.4
3	Bailey, Ed	1953	9	2576	24	0.346	38	10	38	19.4	5.3
4	Hargrave, Bubbles	1921	8	2605	75	0.368	2	1	23	18	4.8
5	Peitz, Heinie	1896	9	2949	-11	0.331	18	4	42	14.2	3.4
6	Clarke, Tommy	1909	9	1935	7	0.339	5	2	37	10.6	3.8
7	Mueller, Ray	1943	6	1864	2	0.336	9	3	16	9.2	3.5
8	Edwards, Johnny	1961	7	2624	-53	0.312	4	1	44	8.2	2.2
9	Burgess, Smoky	1955	4	1227	22	0.356	0	0	13	8	4.6
10	Wingo, Ivey	1915	13	3302	-63	0.313	-5	-1	48	7.3	1.5
11	Vaughn, Farmer	1892	8	2585	-52	0.312	9	2	22	6.7	1.8
12	LaRue, Jason	1999	8	2516	-59	0.308	7	2	42	6.2	1.7
13	McLean, Larry	1906	7	2251	-47	0.311	8	2	36	6	1.9
14	Seminick, Andy	1952	4	1122	-4	0.331	5	3	10	5	3.1
15	Taubensee, Eddie	1994	7	2291	7	0.339	-57	-17	31	4.8	1.5
16	Pavletich, Don	1957	9	1206	13	0.347	-18	-10	6	4.4	2.6
17	Schlei, Admiral	1904	5	1675	-33	0.312	2	1	27	4.2	1.8
18	Diaz, Bo	1985	5	1672	-53	0.299	21	9	26	4.1	1.7
19	Oliver, Joe	1989	8	2598	-87	0.296	10	3	43	3.5	0.9
20	Ross, Dave	2006	3	795	-14	0.315	10	9	14	3.3	2.9
21	Lamanno, Ray	1941	5	1536	-40	0.305	1	0	13	2.6	1.2
22	Wood, Bob	1898	3	492	7	0.351	-3	-4	7	2.6	3.7
23	Campbell, Gilly	1935	3	585	2	0.339	-1	-1	5	2.4	2.9
24	Picinich, Val	1926	3	810	-8	0.324	0	0	8	2.4	2.1
25	Hershberger, Willard	1938	3	427	2	0.34	0	0	4	2	3.3

Next up: First Basemen!

Update (9/15/09): I regret that I mistakenly neglected to include Reds teams prior to 1890 in the above analysis. As a result, some players were mistakenly omitted, though it did not affect rankings among the top-10. Players in the top-25 should have also included Pop Snyder (5 seasons, 6.8 WAR), Deacon White (3 seasons, but 6.2 WAR), and Jim Keenan (7 seasons, 5.7 WAR)