Part of baseball is that received wisdom is built up from decades of experience and observation. Often this wisdom is transferred by sayings and aphorisms. This feature contributes to baseball's art and lore, but frequently the reasons for the sayings are lost. "No pepper," it will say behind home plate, yet the reference is lost on most.

Perhaps my favorite example of this wisdom-by-metaphor (not quite language-by-metaphor) describes a top-heavy pitching rotation:

Spahn and Sain and pray for rain!

It's clear, to the point, and best of all, it rhymes. What's not to like?

Well, to do a little second-guessing more than 60 years later, it isn't at all clear that Gerald Hern, who penned the poem from which the saying is borrowed, got the valuations right!

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Larry Jansen passed away this last Saturday in his sleep (great article from his local newspaper on his life).  He is most remembered for the being the winning pitcher when Bobby Thompson "hit the shot heard around the world".  Larry played for nine seasons and had a nice career cut short by arm trouble.  He was averaging 4.4 WAR per season for his first four seasons and then his production dropped off as seen from this graph (data from Rally's WAR database):

Even though I could not find any reference to Larry having arm problems before 1954, his production dropped off significantly in 1952 (less SO/9 and more BB/9).  He almost for sure was injured in beginning in 1952.

Larry career was similar to many pitchers because they have a few good years, become injured and never pitch to the high standard again.  Looking at Rally's ranking of 500 top pitchers of all time, Larry comes in at #350.  They are several current injury prone pitchers around him such as Kerry Wood (#352), Jake Peavy (#343) and Ben Sheets (#333) that could have similar careers to Larry.  I am not saying these three pitcher's careers are done, but you never know with any given player.  For 5 seasons, Larry was on top of the world and it pretty much came to an end within a couple of years.  Larry career should be a reminder for us to enjoy the players now because we will never know if we will see them play the same, or if at all, again.

When reading analyses of trades past, it is very common to see the analyst insert the caveat that "we'll really know who won this trade in 3 years," or something along those lines.  Of course, it's obvious that the Yankees won that famous "trade" in which they bought Babe Ruth from the Red Sox.  Consider, though, that if Ruth had suffered a career ending injury in the first year following the trade, we'd never talk about it.  That wouldn't make it a smart deal for the Red Sox.  This is only the most obvious of examples, but the point is that we base far too much of how we evaluate trades on results, both in the immediate aftermath and in retrospective look-backs, as opposed to process.

Let us consider the following trade.  For the sake of the exercise, only the relevant information of the players involved will be presented.  No names, no teams.  This trade occurred with free agency rules in place, and arbitration rules were as they are today.  Minimum salary was roughly 140,000, and one marginal win cost roughly 750,000 dollars overall.  A free agent win cost roughly 1.5 million.  Here is the deal:

TEAM A (NL 7.5 GB OF PLAYOFF SPOT) TRADES
------------------------
PLAYER 1 - AGE: 27 POS: RP ML SEASONS: 2.5 ML IP: 159.3 CAREER WAR: 3.1 CONTRACT STATUS: PRE-ARB
AGE 25: 8.5 K/9 3.4 BB/9 29.2 IP
AGE 26: 8.6 K/9 3.5 BB/9 83.2 IP
AGE 27: 9.0 K/9 3.5 BB/9 46.0 IP
---
PLAYER 2 - AGE: 25 POS: SP/RP ML SEASONS: 1 ML IP 16.2 CAREER WAR: -0.8 CONTRACT STATUS: PRE-ARB
MINORS -
AGE 23: 7.7 K/9 4.1 BB/9 163.1 IP between AA/AAA
AGE 24: 10.9 K/9 3.6 BB/9 60.1 IP AAA
AGE 25: 9.6 K/9 2.9 BB/9 80 IP AAA
---
PLAYER 3 - AGE: 23 POS: SP ML SEASONS: 0 ML IP: 0.0 CAREER WAR: 0.0 CONTRACT STATUS: PRE-ARB
AGE 21: 8.6 K/9 3.9 BB/9 139.2 IP A
AGE 22: 8.3 K/9 2.8 BB/9 172.0 IP A+
AGE 23: 7.7 K/9 3.3 BB/9 133.2 IP AA

-----------------------------------------------------------

TEAM B (AL, 19.5 GB) TRADES

-----------------------------------------------------------
PLAYER 4 - AGE: 33 POS: 1B/DH ML SEASONS: 11 ML PA: 5409 CAREER WAR: 43.3 CONTRACT STATUS: SIGNED THROUGH AGE 33 SEASON AT 2.40MM REMAINING
AGE 31: +55 bRAA, -2 TZ, 5.5 WAR
AGE 32: +67 bRAA, -3 TZ, 6.5 WAR
AGE 33: +30 bRAA, -7 TZ, 2.7 WAR

DO NOT CLICK "CONTINUE READING THIS POST" OR READ PAST THE JUMP ("***") BEFORE VOTING IN THE POLL, OR IF YOU FIGURE OUT WHICH TRADE THIS POST IS REFERRING TO.

The point of this is to evaluate a trade without the bias that comes from the names, and knowing what happened in their careers.  Let me know who you think wins this deal.

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More photos » by Tom Gannam - AP

Pujols is probably the best player in baseball. But how does he compare to the greatest 1B's of all time? (AP Photo/Tom Gannam)

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Today we continue our survey through MLB history, courtesy of Rally's WAR database.  Last time, we looked at catchers.  Now, we continue our march around the diamond and turn our attention to the most offensive (heh) of positions, the first basemen.  For most of MLB history, first base has belonged to the slugger: hulking men who specialize in hitting the ball hard, far, and often.  The typical first basemen has traditionally also been a poor fielder compared to other positions, though as you'll see many of the players who make our Top-14 list were at least considered above average fielders at their position.  

At the far right of the defensive spectrum, it is also a place that many players came to play in the second-half of their careers.  Here, I'm defining first basemen as those players who played first base in more games than any other position--even if we remember them for other positions (e.g. Rod Carew, Pete Rose, Ernie Banks, etc).  It does make this a very deep position, and as a result many outstanding players did not make our top-14 list (Banks, Greenburg, Killebrew, etc).  But this seemed to me to be the fairest, most objective way to assign position.

The Top-14 First Basemen, by WAR

14. Willie McCovey of the Giants, Padres, and Athletics.  Hall of Fame.

If Willie McCovey had been a catcher, and had produced the same WAR total over his career somehow or another, he would rank 5th All-time ahead of Yogi Berra.  But first base is a brutally deep position, and as a result the original Big Mac just barely makes our cut.  Willie was a classic power-hitting first baseman.  Good average, took plenty of walks before it was fashionable to do so, and slugged the heck out of the ball.  He led the league in homers three times, slugging percentage thrice, OBP once, and BtRuns three times--all consecutive years.  His peak was phenomenal: from 1968-1970, he was the best hitter in baseball, posting a 188 OPS+ (1st overall each of those years) and racking up more than 22 WAR.  That's a third of his overall career value.  He was Rookie of the Year in 1959, NL MVP in 1969, and a 6-time All Star.  The only knock on his game was his fielding, where he typically cost his teams a half-win per season compared to his opposing numbers.  He more than made up for that with his bat, of course, but it cost him playing time early in his career while competing with Orlando Cepeda (Cepeda is #33 by WAR among 1B's)

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More photos » by Tom Pennington - AP

Pudge Rodriguez has accumulated the most WAR of any active catcher. But where does he rank all-time? (AP Photo/Tom Pennington)

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Preamble

Rally just completed the Herculean task of estimating WAR season totals for every player in major league baseball, 1871 onward.  I don't think it can be understated what an accomplishment this is--yes, we've had other measures on these same players before--win shares, WSAB, WARP, etc.  But I think these are clearly the best measures of career value we have to date, and I was happy to purchase the database from him.  In an effort to explore these data, and to learn some baseball history, I'm embarking on a position-by-position review of career WAR totals. 

There are roughly 14 decades of players in this database, so we'll do a top-14 list at each position. We'll start with catchers!  Keep in mind that these are accumulated career value rankings, not necessarily a list of "the best."  Or even Hall of Fame worthiness...that said, I think they're a great place to start. :)

Top 14 Catchers, by WAR

14. Wally Schang of the Athletics, Red Sox, Yankees, Browns, and Tigers.

Cited on his Wikipedia page as the greatest offensive catcher of the World War I era, Schang played in six World Series teams, three of which were Champions (1913 Athletics, 1918 Red Sox, and 1923 Yankees).  Schang was not a major power hitter, but he hit for fine average and had an excellent eye, walking more than he struck out and finishing his career with a 0.393 OBP.  It's worth noting, as with other pre-retrosheet catchers, it's hard to make much of his defensive numbers, as we don't even have information here on caught stealing percentages.  Schang has a good defensive reputation, so it's possible his true career WAR totals could even be higher.

...the rest of the list below the jump!

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More photos » by Ben Margot - AP

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While many of us on the East Coast were sleeping (or out doing exactly the opposite of that), Jonathan Sanchez of the Giants threw a no-hitter against the Padres (nice live-blogging by Dave Pinto.)  And if Juan Uribe hadn't committed a fielding error, it would have been a perfect game.  Sanchez struck out eleven, and more impressively for him, didn't walk or hit a single batter.  28 up, 27 down, no hits, no walks, no nothing, except for that Uribe error.  Of course, the Giants defense might have helped out on some other batted balls, I'm not sure.

It's so nice that after the frustration of the Royals and Mets stupidity yesterday, we're also able to celebrate a part of baseball history.  According to Baseball-Reference's Play Index, there have been 123 9+ inning performances by starting pitchers where they allowed no hits (a "no-hitter" in my book.)  Well, make that 124 after last night.  The highest Game Score for these no-hitters is 101.  That feat belongs to Nolan Ryan and his 16 strikeout, 2 walk performance against the Blue Jays in 1991, and Sandy Koufax' 14-strikeout perfect game against the Cubs in 1965.  Sanchez clocked in at 98 last night, a number that had only been reached 14 other times:

GmSc	Player	Tm	Opp	Date
101	Nolan Ryan	TEX	TOR	5/1/91
101	Sandy Koufax	LAD	CHC	9/9/65
100	Randy Johnson	ARI	@ATL	5/18/04
100	Nolan Ryan	CAL	@DET	7/15/73
100	Warren Spahn	MLN	PHI	9/16/60
99	Nolan Ryan	TEX	@OAK	6/11/90
99	Don Wilson	HOU	ATL	6/18/67
98	Eric Milton	MIN	ANA	9/11/99
98	David Wells	NYY	MIN	5/17/98
98	Mike Scott	HOU	SFG	9/25/86
98	Len Barker	CLE	TOR	5/15/81
98	Denn Eckersley	CLE	CAL	5/30/77
98	Catfish Hunter	OAK	MIN	5/8/68
98	Sandy Koufax	LAD	@PHI	6/4/64

Yes, that's three appearances by Nolan Ryan and two by Sandy Koufax.

The lowest Game Score for a no-hitter since 1953 is 88, belonging to three guys: Joe Cowley, Ken Holtzman, and George Culver.

Welcome to the club, Jonathan Sanchez, now let's see if you can join the twice-in-a-row club.