Graph of the Day: Henderson vs. Raines vs. Suzuki vs. Gwynn

by Jeff Zimmerman (TucsonRoyal) on Jul 22, 2009 12:48 AM EDT Comment 38 comments

Tom Tango at his blog requested that this comparison and since we are here to please. I am not exactly sure what he is want to compare, but I am sure he will let us all know. The data was taken from Rally's Historical WAR data.

Name	Lifetime WAR
Tony Gwynn	68.5
Ichiro Suzuki	45.3
Rickey Henderson	113.1
Tim Raines	64.9
Average HOF	76.0
Replacement HOF	54.4

Tango_medium

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Henderson was pretty amazing, huh?

Derosa.

by vivaelpujols on Jul 22, 2009 1:08 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

14th greastest position player using Rally's WAR data

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by Jeff Zimmerman (TucsonRoyal) on Jul 22, 2009 1:12 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

However he's not amazing enough

for this guy

"We must win and we must know how to win rather than win because we have statistical people."

by Evan_S on Jul 22, 2009 3:48 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Holy crap!

That guy voted for Blylevin AND Raines, yet didn’t vote for Henderson? That’s really weird, as the former two are usually way underrated.

Derosa.

by vivaelpujols on Jul 22, 2009 3:56 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

it seems

he picked names out of a box or something. he named some under appriciated guys like Raines and Trammell and Blyleven . but then names completely undeserving guys like Matt William and Don Mattingly.

by RollingWave on Jul 22, 2009 5:17 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I thought that was going to be the guy who forgot Henderson...

But, wow, that guy needs to get checked out.

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by bs.uf15bosox9bears23 on Jul 22, 2009 5:38 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

What does Ichiro look like if you add in MLE's for his years in NPB?

Linda's in the cold ground, won't see her anymore
Somewhere out on the highway tonight, the drunken engines roar
It's just one of those things, one of those things
-- Al Stewart, "Accident on 3rd St."
In memory of Nick Adenhart and all victims of drunk driving

by PaulThomas on Jul 22, 2009 1:25 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Is there a calculator for foreign leagues?

I know there’s one for the minors…

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by bs.uf15bosox9bears23 on Jul 22, 2009 5:39 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I have seen something for stats, but no kind of WAR numbers.

Jeff Zimmerman - Protecting the world from RBI's and Wins from my mom's guest house.

by Jeff Zimmerman (TucsonRoyal) on Jul 22, 2009 5:51 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

That's what I was talking about for the minor league one.

http://www.minorleaguesplits.com/mlecalc.html

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by bs.uf15bosox9bears23 on Jul 22, 2009 11:55 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

If you think Japan is the equivilent of AAA

Then Ichiro’s Japan years would have produced a .288/.346/.412 line in Safeco. 1073 hits and 87 homers.

by Flamefox111 on Jul 23, 2009 9:51 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Hmm.

Which AAA league?

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by bs.uf15bosox9bears23 on Jul 24, 2009 3:22 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Excellent stuff.

Tom Tango at his blog requested that this comparison and since we are here to please. I am not exactly sure what he is want to compare, but I am sure he will let us all know

Even your drunk posts are remarkably informative and come with Excel charts!

by Decatur on Jul 22, 2009 2:32 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Sadly, I am surprisingly sober considering the the twinbill the Royals lost with Ponson and Chen as the starters.

Jeff Zimmerman - Protecting the world from RBI's and Wins from my mom's guest house.

by Jeff Zimmerman (TucsonRoyal) on Jul 22, 2009 2:43 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Bill James Really Wasn't Exaggerating About Rickey

If you cut him in half, you still get two hall of famers. What a brilliant player.

Rock ’10

by ProustianDisplay on Jul 22, 2009 8:06 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

For me, this graph favors Rickey and Ichiro and isn't going to be what Tango was hoping to see with Raines.

Although I won’t put words in his mouth. Maybe his point was “hey look how easily HoF voters put Gwynn in the Hall and how much we love Ichiro: that’s Raines.”

Rickey, well, that’s obvious. Ichiro’s already even with the other two guys and with a couple more 4-6 WAR seasons will pull away. Gwynn fell in my book when I compared him to Boggs and Ripken and not to see Raines any better than that?

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by Sky Kalkman on Jul 22, 2009 8:36 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Maybe his point was

"hey look how easily HoF voters put Gwynn in the Hall and how much we love Ichiro: that’s Raines."

Right. Ichiro, after 2010, will be a lock, even forgetting about Japan. Gwynn was very similar to Ichiro. Raines is right in the middle of those two. It’s those two guys Raines should be compared to, not Rickey.

Rickey is on his own planet (as the chart easily shows). There’s no shame in falling short to someone in his own orbit. Raines is flying with other stars.

by tangotiger on Jul 22, 2009 10:50 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

I'm with you.

I just wonder about using the voters’ point of view on Gwynn, but the saberist view on Henderson. My perception is that the more mainstream view is that Henderson was really good, but not an inner circle guy or the guy that this graph thinks he is.

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by Sky Kalkman on Jul 22, 2009 1:27 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

This is the same thing with Blylevin

You are always going to get guys, who for whatever reason, aren’t considered to be “great”.

Derosa.

by vivaelpujols on Jul 22, 2009 1:39 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Also, while he may be equally as good as Gwynn

He’s still about 10 wins below the average hall of famer.

Derosa.

by vivaelpujols on Jul 22, 2009 1:40 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Total career WAR isn't the best judgment of Hall worthiness, and I think we over-use it a bit.

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by Sky Kalkman on Jul 22, 2009 3:08 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Unpossible.

by Daniel Berlyn on Jul 22, 2009 3:13 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I assume you are talking about giving a greater weight to a high peak, right?

When I looked Pennants Added, even in the times when peak value was at it’s highest (like the 60’s), it didn’t improve overall value that much. That is probably the most objective way to quantify peak value, unless you have something better.

Derosa.

by vivaelpujols on Jul 22, 2009 3:35 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I think we've had this discussion before.

“Greatness” isn’t necessarily the guy that did the most to get his teams towards the playoffs over his career. Some people prefer a definition more like, “given all the performance data from a player’s career, how much does it support him for a really high true talent level.”

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by Sky Kalkman on Jul 22, 2009 4:05 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I don't remember who had "10-year dominance" as his standard for Hall of Fame voting, but that's one I really like.

by Decatur on Jul 22, 2009 4:29 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I prefer something less arbitrary.

Why ten?

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by Sky Kalkman on Jul 22, 2009 4:48 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Round number.

Also, easier to vote for someone you think of when you think of a certain decade.

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by bs.uf15bosox9bears23 on Jul 22, 2009 5:45 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I'm not sure how you would quantify that

I guess you could just use WAR*2 or a players 10 best seasons, as that would make great players look better in comparison, but that doesn’t really have any meaning to it.

Derosa.

by vivaelpujols on Jul 22, 2009 5:05 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I think it should be amount of 3 WAR, but just looking at past graphs, there seems to be few with great peak years and huge dropoff

Maybe players in the Steroid year (Sosa and McGwire), but most plots on pretty even going down.

Jeff Zimmerman - Protecting the world from RBI's and Wins from my mom's guest house.

by Jeff Zimmerman (TucsonRoyal) on Jul 22, 2009 3:46 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Ichiro's averaged NPB slash lines, assuming NPB=AAA,

.353/.421/.522/.943

MLE
.298/.351/.429/.780

Actual
.331/.377/.430/.807

Not insanely far off, but it predictably undershoots BA.

Decrease runs scored?
Maybe.

Decrease winning? Never seen that proven.
-SFTU

by hazel on Jul 23, 2009 1:08 AM EDT reply actions 0 recs

Any chance of translating that to WAR?

Derosa.

by vivaelpujols on Jul 23, 2009 8:06 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

That's awesome.

You can estimate wOBA with (1.75xOBP + SLG) / 3, then convert to runs over 550 PAs: +7.5 relative to average.

Assume Ichiro’s defense was +10 runs in RF (-7.5 runs) over that time. That’s a 3.5 WAR player right there, and we’re being a it conservative.

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by Sky Kalkman on Jul 23, 2009 8:18 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

You should also include steals

For his career, he had 199 steals and 33 caught stealing. Assuming that Japan has similar linear weights for steals, that’s about 27 runs right there.

Derosa.

by vivaelpujols on Jul 23, 2009 9:31 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I believe Japan's run environment

Is lower, meaning that those steals would be worth even more. Not sure though.

by Tommy Bennett on Jul 23, 2009 1:40 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Sky, where did you get 1.75 as the multiplier on OBP? In The Book it says 2. You probably have the more recent update but would you mind linking me to it?

by Tommy Bennett on Jul 23, 2009 1:39 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

I think Tango found out the 2 was too high. He actually uses 1.8.

Here a link to an article where he uses 1.8.

Jeff Zimmerman - Protecting the world from RBI's and Wins from my mom's guest house.

by Jeff Zimmerman (TucsonRoyal) on Jul 23, 2009 2:55 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Gracias

I presume it’s lowered to account for the difference in the denominators?

by Tommy Bennett on Jul 23, 2009 3:18 PM EDT up reply actions 0 recs

Tango's written some posts railing on OPS (OPS Be Gone?).

He finds 1.75*OBP + SLG is the best linear combination. To get to the wOBA scale, you divide the league average 1.75*OBP + SLG by whatever brings you back to the league average OBA. It’s usually very nearly 3.

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by Sky Kalkman on Jul 24, 2009 12:00 AM EDT up reply actions 0 recs