During the 2013 baseball season, the City of Chicago approved a $500 million plan to renovate Wrigley Field and build an adjacent office building and hotel.  Included in the renovation plan is the proposed construction of a large video board behind the left field bleachers and signs advertising Budweiser behind the right field bleachers.  The Cubs have delayed the start of this project, however, because the owners of the rooftop businesses across from the ballpark have threatened to file a lawsuit against the Cubs because the proposed signage will obstruct the views of the field from their respective rooftop businesses.

Rooftop Litigation History

Detroit Base-Ball Club v. Deppert, 61 Mich. 63, 27 N.W. 856 (Mich., 1886)

Disputes over neighbors viewing ballgames are nothing new.  In 1885, John Deppert, Jr. constructed a rooftop stand on his barn that overlooked Recreation Park, home to the National League’s Detroit Wolverines, future Hall of Famer Sam Thompson and a rotation featuring the likes of men named Stump Wiedman, Pretzels Getzien and Lady Baldwin.  The Wolverines claimed that they had to pay $3000 per month for rent and that the 50 cent admission fees, helped to offset this cost.  They were thereby “annoyed” by Deppert charging people, between 25 to 100 per game, to watch the games from his property and asked the court to forever ban Deppert from using his property in this manner.

Deppert countered that the ballgames had ruined the quiet enjoyment of his premises, that ballplayers often trespassed on his land in pursuit of the ball and that he often had to call the police to “quell fights and brawls of the roughs who assemble there to witness the games.”  He further claimed that his viewing stand had passed the city’s building inspection and that he had the legal right to charge admission and sell refreshments.

The trial court dismissed the Wolverines case and the ball club appealed.  The Supreme Court of Michigan agreed that the Wolverines had no right to control the use of the adjoining property; therefore, Deppert was within his rights to erect a stand on his barn roof and sell refreshments to fans that wanted to watch the game.  Furthermore, there was no evidence that Deppert’s rooftop customers would otherwise have paid the fees to enter Recreation Park.

Similarly, the rooftops of the buildings across the street from Shibe Park were frequently filled with fans wanting a view of the Philadelphia Athletics game action.  While never happy about the situation, Connie Mack was pushed too far in the early 1930s when the rooftop operators started actively poaching fans from the ticket office lines.  Mack responded by building the “Spite Fence,” a solid wall that effectively blocked the view of the field from the buildings across 20^th Street.

Lawsuits were filed but the “Spite Fence” remained in place throughout the remainder of the use of Shibe Park, later renamed Connie Mack Stadium.

The Current Dispute

Chicago National League Ball Club, Inc. v. Skybox on Waveland, LLC, 1:02-cv-09105 (N.D.IL.)

In this case, the Cubs sued the rooftop owners on December 16, 2002 seeking compensatory damages, disgorgement to the Cubs of the defendants’ profits and a permanent injunction prohibiting the rooftop owners from selling admissions to view live baseball games at Wrigley Field, among other remedies and under several causes of action.  According to the complaint, the Cubs alleged that the defendant rooftop operators “…have unlawfully misappropriated the Cubs’ property, infringed its copyrights and misleadingly associated themselves with the Cubs and Wrigley Field.  By doing so, Defendants have been able to operate multi-million dollar businesses in and atop buildings immediately outside Wrigley Field and unjustly enrich themselves to the tune of millions of dollars each year, while paying the Cubs absolutely nothing.”

In their statement of undisputed facts, the defendants countered that the rooftops had been used to view games since the park opened on April 23, 1914 as home of the Chicago Federal League team and that the Cubs conceded that their present management knew the rooftop businesses were selling admissions since at least the late 1980s.

In May 1998, the City of Chicago enacted an ordinance authorizing the rooftops to operate as “special clubs,” which allowed them to sell admissions to view Cubs games under city license.  The City wanted their piece of the action and interestingly, the Cubs made no formal objection to the ordinance.  Based on the licensure and lack of any opposition from the Cubs, the rooftop owners made substantial improvements to enhance the experience and to meet new City specifications.

By January 27, 2004, the Cubs had reached a written settlement with owners of 10 of the defendant rooftop businesses which assured that the Cubs “would not erect windscreens or other barriers to obstruct the views of the [settling rooftops]” for a period of 20 years.  The remaining rooftop owners later settled and the case was dismissed on April 8, 2004, just days ahead of the Cubs home opener set for April 12^th.

After the 2004 agreement legitimized their businesses, the rooftop owners made further improvements to the properties.  Long gone are the days that a rooftop experience meant an ice-filled trough of beer and hot dogs made on a single Weber.  The rooftop operations are now sophisticated businesses with luxurious accommodations, enhanced food and beverage service and even electronic ticketing.

As a result of the settlement agreement of Cubs’ 2002 lawsuit, the team now has legitimate concerns that a subsequent lawsuit by the rooftop owners to enforce the terms of the contract could ultimately result in the award of monetary damages to the rooftop owners; cause further delays in the commencement of the construction project due to a temporary restraining order; or, be the basis of an injunction preventing the Cubs from erecting the revenue-producing advertising platforms for the remainder of the rooftop revenue sharing agreement.

It is obvious that the rooftop owners need the Cubs more than the Cubs need them; however, the Cubs wanted their piece of the rooftop owners’ profits (estimated to be a payment to the Cubs in the range of $2 million annually) and now the Cubs have to deal with the potential that their massive renovation project will be held up by the threat of litigation over the blocking of the rooftop views.

FIP, xFIP, SIERA are all very good ERA estimators, and their predictability is well documented. It is well known that SIERA is the best ERA estimator over samples that occur from season to season, followed very close by xFIP, with FIP lagging behind. FIP is best at showing actual performance though, because is uses all real events (K, BB, HR). Skill is commonly best attributed to either xFIP or SIERA. ERA is also well known to be the worst metric at predicting future performance, unless the sample size is very large <500IP with the pitcher remaining in the same or a very similar pitching environment.

FIP, xFIP, and SIERA are supposed to be Defense Independent Metrics, and they are. Well, they are independent of field defense, but there is one small error in the claim of defense independent. K’s and BB’s are not completely independent of defense. Catcher pitch framing plays a role in K’s and BB’s. Catchers can be good or bad at changing balls into strikes and this affects K’s and BB’s. Umpire randomness and umpire bias also play a role in K’s and BB’s. It is unknown how much of getting umpires to call more strikes is a skill for a pitcher or not. Some pitchers are consistent at getting more strike calls (Buehrle, Janssen) or less strike calls (Dickey, Delabar), but for most pitchers it is very random (especially in small sample sizes). For example Jason Grilli was in the top 5% in 2013 but was in bottom 10% in 2012.

I wanted to come up with another ERA estimator that eliminates catcher framing, umpire randomness and bias, and eliminates defense. I took the sample of pitchers who have pitched at least 200IP since 2008 (N=410) and analyze how different statistics that meet this criteria affect ERA-. I used ERA- since it takes out park factors and adjusts for the changes in the league from year to year. I looked at the plate discipline pitchf/x numbers (O-Swing, Z-Swing, O-Contact, Z-Contact, Swing, Contact, Zone, SwStr), the six different results based off plate discipline (zone or o-zone, swing or looking, contact or miss for ZSC%, ZSM%, ZL%, OSC%, OSM%, OL%), and batted ball profiles (GB%, LD%, FB%, IFFB%). *Please note that all plate discipline data is PitchF/X data, not the the other plate discipline on FanGraphs, this is important as the values differ*

The stats with very little to absolutely no correlation (R^2<0.01) were: Z-Swing%, Zone%, OSC%, ZSC%, ZL% (was a bit surprised as this would/should be looking strike%), GB%, and FB%. These guys are obviously a no-no to include in my estimator.

The stats with little correlation (R^2<0.1) were: Swing%, LD%, and IFFB%. I shouldn’t use these either.

O-Contact% (0.17), Z-Contact%, (.302), Contact% (.319), OSM% (0.206), and ZSM% (.248) are all obviously directly related to SwStr%. SwStr% had the highest correlation (.345) out of any of these stats. There is obviously no need to include all of the sub stats when I can just use SwStr%. SwStr% will be used in my metric.

OL% (0.105) is an obvious component of O-Swing% (0.192). O-Swing had the second highest correlation of the metrics (other than the components of SwStr%). I will use it as well. The theory behind using O-Swing% is that when the batter doesn’t swing it should almost always be a ball (which is bad), but when the batter swings, there are a two outcomes, a swing and miss (which is a for sure strike) or contact. Intuitively, you could say that contact on pitches outside the zone is not as harmful to pitchers as pitches inside the zone, as the batter should get worse contact. This is partially supported in the lower R^2 for O-Contact% to Z-Contact%. It is more harmful for a pitcher to have a batter make contact on a pitch in the zone, than a pitch out of the zone. This is why O-Swing is important and I will use it.

Using just SwStr% and O-Swing%, I came up with a formula to estimate (with the help of Excel) ERA-. I ran this formula through different samples and different tests, but it just didn’t come up with the results I was looking for. The standard deviation was way too small compared to the other estimators, and the root mean square error was just not good enough for predicting future ERA-.

I did not expect/want this estimator to be more predictive than xFIP or SIERA. This is because xFIP and SIERA have more environmental impacts in them that remain fairly constant. K% is always a better predictor of future K% than any xK% that you can come up with. Same with BB% Why? Probably because the environment of catcher framing, and umpire bias remain somewhat constant. Also (just speculation) pitchers who have good control can throw a pitch well out of the zone when they are ahead in the count, just to try and get the batter to swing or to “set-up” a pitch. They would get minus points for this from O-Swing, depending on how far the pitch is off the plate, but it may not affect their K% or BB% if they come back and still strike out the batter.

So I didn’t expect my statistic to be more predictive, but the standard deviation coupled with not that great of RMSE (was still better than ERA and FIP with a min of 40IP), caused me to be unhappy with my stat.

I then started to think about if there were any stats that were only dependent on the reaction between batter an pitcher that are skill based that FanGraphs does not have readily available? I started thinking about foul balls and wondered if foul ball rates were skill based and if they were related to ERA-. I then calculated the number of foul balls that each pitcher had induced. To find this I subtracted BIP (balls in play or FB+GB+LD+BU+IFFB) from contacts (Contact%*Swing%*Pitches). This gave me the number of fouls. I then calculated the rates of fouls/pitch and foul/contacts and compared these to ERA-. Foul/Contact or what I’m calling Foul%, had an R^2 of .239. That’s 2nd to only SwStr%. This got me excited, but I needed to know if Foul% is skill based and see what else it correlates with.

This article from 2008 gave me some insight into Foul%. Foul% correlates well to K% (obviously) and to BB% (negative relationship), since a foul is a strike. Foul% had some correlation to SwStr%, this is good as it means pitchers who are good at getting whiffs are also usually good at getting fouls. Foul% also had some correlation to FB% and GB%. The more fouls you give up, the more fly balls you give up (and less GB). This doesn’t matter however, as GB% and FB% had no correlation to ERA-. Foul% is also fairly repeatable year to year as evidenced in the article, so it is a skill. I will come up with a new estimator that includes Foul% as well.

I decided to use O-Looking% instead of O-Swing%, just to get a value that has a positive relationship to ERA (more O-looking means higher ERA), because SwStr% and O-Swing are negatively related. O-Looking is just the opposite of O-Swing and is calculated as (1 – O-Swing%).

The formula that Excel and I came up with is this: (I am calling the metric TIPS, for True Independent Pitching Skill)

TIPS = 6.5*O-Looking(PitchF/x)% – 9.5*SwStr% – 5.25*Foul% + C

C is a constant that changes from year to year to adjust to the ERA scale (to make an average TIPS = average ERA). For 2013 this constant was 2.68.

I converted this to TIPS- to better analyze the statistic. FIP, xFIP, and SIERA were also converted to FIP-, xFIP-, and SIERA-. I took all pitchers’ seasons from 2008-2013 to analyze. The sample varied in IP from 0.1 IP to 253 IP. I found the following season’s ERA- for each pitcher if they pitched more than 20 IP the next year and eliminated any huge outliers. Here were the results with no min IP. RMSE is root mean square error (smaller is better), AVG is the average difference (smaller is better), R^2 is self explanatory (larger is better), and SD is the standard deviation.

Wow TIPS- beats everyone! But why? Most likely because I have included small samples and TIPS- is based off per pitch, as opposed to per batter (SIERA) or per inning (xFIP and FIP). There are far more pitches than AB or IP so TIPS will stabilize very fast. Let’s eliminate small sample sizes and look again.

Now, TIPS is beaten out by xFIP and SIERA, but beats ERA and and is close to FIP (wins in RMSE, loses in R^2). This is what I expected, as I explained earlier K% and BB% are always better at predicting future K% and BB% and they are included in SIERA and xFIP. SIERA and xFIP take more concrete events (K, BB, GB) than TIPS. I didn’t want to beat these estimators, but instead wanted a estimator that is independent of everything except for pitcher-batter reaction.

TIPS won when there was no IP limit, so it obviously is the best to use in smaller sample sizes, but when is it better than xFIP and SIERA, and where does it start falling behind? I plotted the RMSE for my entire sample at each IP. Theoretically these should be an inverse relationship. After 150 IP it gets a bit iffy, as most of my sample is less than 100 IP. I’m more interested in IP under 100 anyhow.

Orange is TIPS, Blue is ERA, Red is FIP, Green is xFIP, and Purple is SIERA. If you can’t see xFIP, it’s because it is directly underneath SIERA (they are almost identical). This is roughly what the graph should look like to 100 IP:

Looking at the graph, at what IPs is TIPS better than predicting future ERA than xFIP and SIERA? It appears to be from 0 IP to around 70 IP.

Here is the graph for 1/RMSE (higher R^2). Higher number is better. This is the most accurate graph as the relationship should be inverse.

The 70-80 IP mark is clear here as well.

I’m not suggesting my estimator is better than xFIP or SIERA, it isn’t in samples over 75 IP, but I think it is, and can be, a very powerful tool. Most bullpen pitchers stay under 75 IP in a season. This means that my unnamed estimator would be very useful for bullpen arms in predicting future ERA. I also believe and feel that my estimator is a very good indicator of the raw skill of a pitcher. It would probably be even more predictive if we had robo-umps that eliminated umpire bias and randomness and pitch framing.

2013 TIPS Leaders with 100+IP

And Leaders from 40IP to 100IP

Note: I have no idea if I’m the first to do this, but quite frankly I don’t care.

There’s always been something strangely romantic to me about being the absolute worst at something. And when I say worst, I don’t just mean one of the worst–I’m talking about being the absolute worst period whatever period ever period. I can’t explain why it is–perhaps it’s because I’ve been last at virtually everything throughout my life, or perhaps it’s because I’m a fan of the Orioles–but for some reason, I’m transfixed by the idea of being the floor, the ultimate, the person or entity that everyone else looks down upon.

Now, what do my strange, borderline masochistic feelings towards the awful have to do with three of the better all-time players, two of whom are enshrined in Cooperstown and one of whom probably should be? Well, they all have one thing in common, which no one has seemed to realize: At one point or another, they were all the worst qualifying position player in the majors.

How, you ask? When? Why? I’ll answer your questions, but first I’d like to share with you some of the other big names that fit this criteria. Since the season ended on the 29th of September¹, there are now 143 seasons, meaning 143 worst players (or LVPs, for the sake of this exercise). I gathered up each of them, and saw that of the 143 atrocious seasons, many of them involved players that had good–or in some cases, great–careers. I then proceeded to order each player season by career WAR, to present you, the unedumacated reader, with…The Best Of The Worst.

By that, I mean: the following post consists of the top-10 careers (as measured by career WAR) for position players that were the worst in the major leagues for a particular season. I classified the general area of their career that the LVP season happened in: start-of-career bump, middle-of-career fluke, or end-of-career decline; I also put in my attempt at an explanation as to why the bad season happened. Oh, and I also divided them into groups (as they were somewhat similar), à la Bill Simmons’ NBA Trade Value Rankings.

Off we go!

GROUP I: AGING IN THE OUTFIELD²

10. Marquis Grissom

Career WAR: 26.9

LVP year/WAR: 2000/-1.8

Classification: End-of-career decline

Grissom had a solid career for the most part–he won a World Series, with a club that doesn’t tend to do well in the postseason; he won four consecutive Gold Gloves (from 1993 to 1996); at the time of his retirement, he was one of only seven players all-time with 200 home runs, 400 stolen bases, and 2000 hits (a club later joined by Johnny Damon); and he is now, to paraphrase Drake, 46 sittin’ on 51 mil ($51,946,500, to be exact). Also, as you can see above, he compiled a decent career WAR total, including two 5-win seasons in 1992 and 1993 for the Expos. However, you sure as hell wouldn’t have known that from watching his horrid 2000 season.

Traded to the Brewers in 1998 after the Indians resigned Kenny Lofton, Grissom was never able to recapture the magic from his early days north of the border, or at the very least, his sufficing days in Atlanta or Cleveland. At this point, his fielding in center (which peaked at 20.7 Def³ in 1994) was in decline, but his glove work in 2000, while unsatisfactory (-3.8 Def), wasn’t particularly bad for him, as he’d proceed to have Defs lower than that in four of his next (and last) five seasons. His baserunning was also trending downward; his BsR (which peaked at 10.5 in 1992, when he stole 78 bases) had plummeted all the way to -0.5, as he swiped a mere 20 bags. Again, though, this is a relatively minute contribution.

His batting was the major reason for his hideousness in 2000: He put up a Starlinesque triple-slash of .244/.288/.351, in a season when 16 players hit 40 home runs, 15 batted at least .330, and the major league-average triple-slash was .270/.345/.437. This all added up to an Ichiroesque wOBA of .282 and an Hechavarriaesque wRC+ of 59, which, combined with the aforementioned poor baserunning and defense, was enough to give him -1.8 WAR and edge him past Mike Lansing (-1.7) for the LVP.

This disappointing offensive season, while not all that unusual, was certainly a fluke to some degree. In terms of plate discipline, he was basically the same in 2000 (6.1% BB, 15.5% K) as he was for his career (6.2% BB, 13.8% K); it was when he put the ball in play that he got in trouble. His ISO of .108 was his lowest since 1991 (his first full season), and it convalesced the next year to a much healthier .183 (albeit in 172 fewer plate appearances); in addition, his BABIP was at .270, the second-lowest of his career to that point, although it dropped even further, to .242, the next year. It wasn’t like he had a huge rebound in 2001, either; however, the increase in ISO (and not qualifying for the batting title) was enough for a lofty -0.9 WAR in 468 trips to the plate the next year.

9. Carlos Lee

 Career WAR: 28.2

LVP year/WAR: 2010/-1.5

Classification: End-of-career decline

El Caballo clearly had some late-career struggles (as Richard Justice sure liked to point out); the huge (for the time) $100 million dollar deal that Houston signed him to certainly didn’t help the fans’ image of him. The contract notwithstanding, Lee had a decent career–two Silver Sluggers (2005, 2007), a five-win season in 2004 with the White Sox, and the career WAR that precedes this section. He also had the rare (for this era) distinction of never striking out 100 times in a season, and to top it all off, he was a player who acknowledged, and embraced, his critics. Plus, you can’t blame him for signing the contract–blame that dipshit of a GM, Ed Wa-wait, what’s that you say? Lee wasn’t signed to the ridiculous contract by Wade, but by…Tim Purpura? The guy with one reference on his Wikipedia page? Who the hell is he? Oh, whatever. Where was I?

Ah, yes. Lee’s final years. It should be noted that Mr. Lee’s abominable antepenultimate⁴ season was bookended by respectable seasons in 2009 and 2011, when he put up a combined 3.9 WAR–not exactly Mike Trout, but also not Delmon Young. With aaaaaalll of that said, though, the fact of the matter is: Carlos Lee was really goddamn awful in 2010. He provided typical Carlos Lee defense (-23.2 Def, edging his -22.3 Def from 2006 for the worst of his career) and baserunning (-3.6 BsR…pretty much in line with his career numbers), which commiserated with a .246/.291/.417 triple-slash (.310 wOBA, 89 wRC+) to give him a WAR of -1.5.

I brought up earlier that his 2010 season was, to some extent, a fluke. The main reason for his poor offensive showing in 2010 was twofold: a low BABIP (.238, 21 points lower than his previous career low of .259) motivated by a 15.6% line-drive rate, well below his career average of 20%; and a decrease in free passes (5.7% BB, much lower than his career rate of 7.5%). Both of these measure bounced back the following season, to .279 and 9%, respectively.

And lest we forget, 2010 was a year with a looooot of bad players–Melky Cabrera (-1.4 WAR) getting run out of Atlanta, Adam Lind (-1.0) and Jason Kubel (-0.4) coming crashing down to Earth after breakout seasons, Jonny Gomes (-0.4) and Carlos Quentin (-0.3) showing off their fielding prowess, Cesar Izturis (-0.4) being Cesar Izturis…But I digress. The main takeaway: 2010 Carlos Lee=horrible. Basically all other years Carlos Lee=not (to varying degrees).

GROUP II: THEY DON’T RACKA THE DISCIPRINE

8. Ray Durham

Career WAR: 30.3

LVP year/WAR: 1995/-1.4

Classification: Start-of-career bump

The Sugarman’s career met a premature end, but he was a trusty player for most of it. He was never a star player–his career-high single-season WAR was 3.9 in 2001, in his last full year with the White Sox–but he was always a contributor, putting up at least a two-win season for nine of the eleven seasons from 1996 to 2006. He made two All-Star teams (in 1998 and 2000), scored 100 runs in every year from 1997 to 2002 (if you care about such things), and stole at least 23 bases a season over that span (plus 30 in 1996). When his career started, though, he was just a fifth-round draft pick by the White Sox in 1990, who worked his way up through the farm system and won the starting second baseman job in 1995 spring training. How did that first season go?

Well, let’s start by saying he was never a very good defender. His career high Def was 8.1 in 2001, and he followed that up with -11.9 in 2002; for his career, his Def was -62.5, 2nd-worst among second basemen over that time. In the year in question, though, he took his defense to a new level. He put up…a -20.7 Def. Now, that doesn’t sound particularly (or at least historically) shitty, at least at first glance; after all, three players had worse figures this year alone⁵. However, one must consider the position that Mr. Durham manned was (and is) one of the premier defensive positions on the field, such that there have only been two–count ’em, two–players ever with a Def lower than that at second: Todd Walker (-21.5) in 1998, and Tony Womack (-24.2) in 1997. What’s more, Durham achieved that in only 1049.2 innings (in 122 games played); supposing he played 20% more innings (~1250, a standard 7 of the 19 qualified second basemen reached in 2013), he could have easily had a -25 Def, a depth the likes of which no second baseman has sunk to.

As dreadful as he was with the glove, he was still pretty reprehensible with the bat. In 517 plate appearances, he posted a .257/.309/.384 triple-slash and a .306 wOBA. In this day and age, those numbers are all right; in 2013, Brandon Phillips was able to put up a 91 wRC+ with similar lines. During the height of the PAWSTMOMNEP⁶ Era, in the Cell? Those numbers are unacceptable, and this was reflected in Durham’s 82 wRC+ and -10.9 Off. His awfulness in these two areas was not offset by his relatively solid baserunning (1.3 BsR), and he finished the season with a WAR of -1.4, which tied him with Kevin Stocker for the honor of ultimate player.

Durham’s defense never became great, but his offense rebounded after this fluke rookie season. His 6% walk rate as a rookie was much lower than his career average of 9.7%, and was by far the lowest of his career; his .127 ISO as a rookie was also considerably lower than his career ISO of .158, and was the third-lowest of his career. He was inconsistent for a few years after 1995, alternating between solid (2.0 WAR in 1996, 3.2 in 1998) and not so solid (0.3 in 1997, 1.2 in 1999), before accruing 2.7 WAR in 2000, the start of a seven-year run of at least two wins. But, despite what this article might lead you to believe, he was not, in fact, a good rookie.

7. Ron Fairly

Career WAR: 35.3

LVP year/WAR: 1967/-0.8

Classification: Middle-of-career fluke

In terms of hitting, Fairly is akin to the players that precedes him (and the player that he precedes): They all have so-so averages and power numbers, in addition to undesirable defense, but have fairly good plate discipline, which allowed them to enjoy fruitful careers. Hence, the cheesy and racist title for this section⁷.

Anyway…Fairly was another player like Durham–never elite, but always productive. He had two 4-win seasons (1970 and 1973), made the All-Star team in 1973 and 1977, and owned a career .360 OBP in an era where there was a dearth of offense. He also won three World Series, in 1959, 1963, and 1965–all with the Dodgers, with whom he spent the first 11.5 years of his 21 years in the majors. He was adequate throughout most of his tenure in Los Angeles; after his first three seasons (1958-60) when he didn’t start, he put up at least 1.9 WAR in each of the next six seasons (1961-66).

And then along came his putrid 1967. “How putrid?” you inquire. Very putrid, I reply. His defense (-15.7 Def in 1167.1 innings) and baserunning (-1.5 BsR) were as weak as they’d ever been , but this year was all about the offense. As a well-conducted player at the plate, Fairly took the base on balls quite a bit in his career–about once in every eight trips to the plate (12.5%). While his BB% of 9.7% was down from that average, and the lowest of his career to that point, it was basically in line with the MLB average of 9.8%; in addition, his strikeout rate of 9.2% (compared to 10.4% for his career) was well below the MLB average of 15.8%.

Like with Grissom, Fairly’s issues were chiefly with balls in play. He didn’t have a whole lot in the way of power, as his .101 ISO was a good deal below the major league-average of .148, and below his respectable career ISO of .142. The luck dragons were also not particularly fond of him that year; his BABIP freefell to a hapless .224. Even in the year prior to The Year Of The Pitcher, the major leagues still managed to hit .255/.302/.404, with a .280 BABIP and a .148 ISO; Mr. Fairly “hit” .220/.295/.321, which gave him a .277 wOBA and an 82 wRC+ (as opposed to .329 and 113 for MLB). In the end, he had -0.8 WAR for the year, which tied him with Zoilo Versalles for the LVP title⁸.

In summary, ISO and BABIP were the main reasons for Fairly’s nauseating 1967; each was down from .177 and .288 figures the year before, and after another down year in 1968 (.066 and .259)⁹, they would rebound to .202 and .270 in 1969, and would remain high as Fairly enjoyed the best years of his career in Montreal¹º.

6. Eddie Yost

 Career WAR: 37

LVP year/WAR: 1947/-0.8

Classification: Start-of-career bump

As Matt Klaassen wrote last year, one can only express sorrow when looking back at the career of Mr. Yost, who played 60 years too early. For his career, the third baseman had a modest .254 batting average and .371 slugging percentage, but a phenomenal .394 on-base percentage, due to a 17.6% career walk rate that, as the article points out, is second only to Barry Bonds since 1940. However, this was in the pre-pre-pre-Moneyball days, before many people knew about any stats, much less “advanced” stats like OBP. So, sadly, Yost is doomed to walk the earth as a forgotten man. Well, not really–he died last year–but you get what I’m saying.

In 1947, however? Eddie Yost wasn’t underappreciated, as anyone who knew anything about baseball could see that he was awful. After logging 47 combined plate appearances in 1944 and 1946 (and joining the navy in 1945, just in time for the end of the war), Yost finally got a chance to start in 1947, getting 485 plate appearances for the Washington Senators. How did he do with those plate appearances? Well…

He accrued free passes, or so it would appear at first glance; his walk rate of 9.3% would be sterling in this era, what with our major league walk rate of 7.9%. Back then, however, the major league walk rate was 9.7%, so he was actually below average; moreover, the major league strikeout rate was 9.6%, meaning his 11.8% strikeout rate was worse that average. His defense–which would never be that good, as his -91.7 career Def shows–was also rather lousy, to the tune of -6 Def, as was his baserunning (-1.5 BsR). However, it’s possible to play at an elite level with poor plate discipline (as Carlos Gomez sure has shown) and with poor fielding (as Miguel Cabrera sure has shown); what, then, made him so dissatisfactory?

Well, as that annoying bundle of sticks that the women love might say, it was all about (hashtag) that power. He had a .054 ISO; even in a year where the average ISO was .117, that’s not exactly Miggy levels. His BABIP was right around average (.275, to .277 for the majors), but this Pierre-like power, coupled with the aforementioned above-average strikeout rate, gave him a batting average of .238 and a slugging percentage of .292. His on-base percentage was a solid .312; however, the major league-average OBP was .336, along with a .261 AVG and .378 SLG. All of this commiserated to give him a .277 wOBA, 84 wRC+, and -17.1 Off; when Green Day was awakened, Fairly had -0.8 WAR, which beat out Jerry Priddy (-0.6) for the LVP title.

From there, Yost only got better. Yeah, there wasn’t much worse he could get, but his WAR still improved in each of the next four seasons, and he was a two-win player for seven straight years (1950-56). He pinnacled with 6.2 WAR in 1959, when he even hit for decent power, socking 21 dingers (with a .157 ISO) in his first year after leaving The Black Hole Known As Griffith Stadium¹¹. It’s a shame he had to start out as shittily as it did.

GROUP III: A ROCK AND GUITAR PLACE¹² (OR, AGING IN THE OUTFIELD, PART II)

5. Dave Parker

Career WAR: 41.1

LVP year/WAR: 1987/-0.6

Classification: End-of-career decline

Paul Swydan reminisced on the career of Parker earlier this year after it was announced that he (i.e. Parker) had Parkinson’s disease. I’ll briefly rehash Swydan’s reporting here.

Parker’s job when called up was to replace the player who is #1 on this list, and obviously, those were some big shoes to fill. Parker did not shrink from the spotlight, however, as he produced 30.3 WAR over his first five full seasons (1975-79), which tied him with The Despised One for fourth-most in the majors over that span. He attained quite a bit of hardware over this time as well–the NL MVP trophy in 1978 and Gilded Gloves¹³ in 1977-79–and won batting titles in 1977 and 1978.

These five years were the best of his career, and after the fourth year (1978) he was rewarded with a five-year, $5 million-dollar contract–the largest in MLB history at the time. However, much like a certain power-hitting Pennsylvanian today, he would struggle to live up to this contract; after the first year (1979), when he put up 5.7 WAR and was instrumental in helping the Pirates win the Fall Classic, he would only log 1660 plate appearances over the final four years of the deal (and only contribute 1.6 WAR in those years). This was due to several factors, namely his affinity for a certain white substance that is, generally speaking, frowned upon in our society; his continued usage of said substance earned him a full-year suspension for the 1986 season, which he was able to circumvent via community service, donations of his salary, and submission to random drug tests.

After his contract expired in 1983, he signed with the Reds, and his production was essentially the same as in the last few years in Shitts¹⁴ Pittsburgh (save for his fluky, 5.4-WAR 1985 season) and as it would be for the rest of his career. There was one year in particular, though, where he really hit rock bottom: the year that followed the suspension year.

In the year in question–his last in Cincy–Parker was, shall we say, no muy bueno. A career .290/.339/.471 hitter, Parker hit .253/.311/.433 in 1987. While one might attribute this to his 16.1% strikeout rate and 6.8% walk rate (compared to 15.5% and 8.9%, respectively, for the majors), these numbers are actually pretty analogous to his career numbers (15.1% and 6.1%, respectively). His power was also comparable to his career figures (.180 ISO in 1987, .181 for his career).

For Mr. Parker (like for so many of the others on this list) the issues arose from two areas: when the other team fielded the balls he hit, and when he fielded the balls the other team hit. Parker’s .265 BABIP was the lowest of his career for a full season, not to mention being 49 points below his career BABIP of .314 and 24 points below the major league-average BABIP of .289. His glovework also left something to be desired¹⁵–he posted a -17.8 Def, which was second-worst in the majors.

Overall, his hitting wasn’t too dreadful–his triple-slash was good enough for a .316 wOBA and 87 wRC+. He wasn’t even that bad, period–his WAR was -0.6, a relatively good figure. Out of the 143 seasons, only 5 players were LVPs with a higher WAR; Parker was just unfortunate enough to have a down season in a year where the only serious competition for the LVP was Cory Snyder (-0.5).

One last thing on Parker: As painful as his 1987 season was, his last season (1991) was even worse–he had -1.2 WAR in only 541 plate appearances for the Angels and Blue Jays. Unfortunately, he was robbed of the LVP crown by some scrub named Alvin Davis. Hah! What a loser! It’s not like any site editor has ever vehemently defended Davis and would cancel my account if I was to insult Mr. Mariner!

(Your move, Cameron.)

4. Bernie Williams

Career WAR: 44.3

LVP year/WAR: 2005/-2.3

Classification: End-of-career decline

Williams’ case for Cooperstown has generated quite a bit of controversy, over everything from the impact and weighting of postseason play to the cost of defense to True Yankeedom. That point, however, is now moot, as Williams is now off the ballot; whether or not he deserves to be is a can of shit I’d rather not open right now.

With Williams, the superlatives are certainly present–five All-Star appearances (1997-2001), four Gilded Gloves¹⁵ (1997-2000), four World Series rings (1996, 1998-2000), a Silver Slugger (2002), and the ALCS MVP in 2002. He also had seven 4-WAR seasons over an eight-year period (1995-2002), and was the 12th-most valuable position player in baseball over that time. Plus, he was, y’know, a True Yankee.

It’s the years to which this period came prior that I am focusing on. After that eight-year run of dominance, Williams fell off a cliff (as Paul Swydan explained earlier this year), putting up…wait for it…-3.3 WAR over the next four seasons, dead last in the majors in that span. Most of that negative WAR came from one year: 2005, the second-to-last of Mr. Williams’ career.

In said year, Williams (he of the career .297/.381/.477 triple-slash) batted a mere .249/.321/.367. The PAWSTMOMNEP Era was beginning to transition into the Era of the Pitcher, but offenses were still favored–the major league triple-slash was .264/.330/.419–and Williams’ batting (and -1.4-run baserunning) was enough to give him a .305 wOBA, 85 wRC+, and -11.2 Off. His strikeout rate in 2005 (13.7%) mirrored his career rate (13.4%) and was much better than the MLB rate (16.4%), and while his walk rate of 9.7% was low by his standards (career walk rate of 11.8%), it was still considerably better than the MLB average of 8.2%; his batted-ball rates were also all right (19% LD/43.5% GB/37.5% FB). It was a poor BABIP (.270, as opposed to .318 for his career and .295 for MLB) and a poorer ISO (.118, as opposed to .180 for his career and .154 for MLB) that did him in.

But Williams’ offensive struggles pale in comparison to his defensive ineptitude. Never the greatest with the glove, Williams hit a new low in 2005¹⁶, as he had a -30.2 Def in 862.2 innings. In terms of UZR, he was 29.2 runs below average, and because he didn’t play that much, his performance extrapolates to 42.5 runs below average per 150 games. As a point of reference, Adam Dunn’s worst career UZR/150 as a outfielder was -39.2 in 2009. So, yeah.

The disconcerting work in the field by Williams, coupled with ineffectiveness at the plate, gave him a -2.3 WAR for the year; this put him in a class of his own, as the next-worst player was Scott Hatteberg, whose -0.7 WAR was a full 1.6 behind him. Maybe, if his production hadn’t completely deteriorated at the tail end of his career, Williams would be in the Hall right now, and the point would still be moot, but for a better reason.

GROUP IV: CENTRAL COMPETITORS

3. Ted Simmons

Career WAR: 54.2

LVP year/WAR: 1984/-2.4

Classification: End-of-career decline

Look, I’m not saying Ted Simmons should go to the Hall of Fame. What I will say is this:

Simmons is player A. Ichiro Suzuki is player B. Just sayin’.

Anyway, regardless of one’s opinion on Mr. Simmons, one cannot deny that he was an excellent all-around player for most of his career. People of his day certainly didn’t, as he was named to eight All-Star teams (1972-74, 1977-79, 1981, 1983) and won a Silver Slugger (1980). He was generally regarded as the second-best hitting catcher of his era, behind Johnny Bench, and while catchers are held to a lower offensive standard than most other players, he was no slouch with the bat–his career wRC+ was 116, better than Adrian Beltre and Andruw Jones. His defense was mediocre (53rd out of 113 catchers in Def over the course of his career), but he was still outstanding, as the above comparison should show.

Like all mortal men, though, Simmons’ production decayed as he aged; after contributing at least three wins in 12 of 13 seasons from 1971 to 1983, he was at or below replacement level in four of his last five years. In the first of those five years, he was a special kind of awful.

In 1983 (the last year of the 13-year period), Simmons was actually quite valuable, to the tune of 3.7 WAR for the Brewers. The next year…well, everything fell apart. His triple-slash collapsed from a healthy .308/.351/.448 to a sickly .221/.269/.300, which took his wOBA from .352 to .259, his wRC+ from 122 to 60, and his Off from 16.6 to -24.6. His plate discipline was fairly similar in both years (6.3% BB%, 7.8% K% in 1983; 5.6% and 7.5% in 1984), although his walk rate in both years was a good deal below his career average of 8.8%. This meltdown was primarily caused by a David Murphy-like¹⁷ dropoff in BABIP, from .317 to .233, and a near-halving of ISO, from .140 to .078; both of these numbers were a good deal below Simmons’ career numbers (.284 and .152, respectively). What’s more, he spent most of his time at DH, meaning he was held to a higher offensive standard; thus, these already bad numbers were reduced even further.

When Simmons did play in the field (at first and third, not catcher), his defense was somewhat rotten, as he posted -4 TZ in 457.1 combined innings. With the subtracted defensive runs for not fielding at all, his Def dropped from -3 in 1983 to -14.5 Def (12th-worst in the majors) in 1984.

When the dust had settled, Simmons was left with -2.4 WAR, which gave him a comfortable lead over Curtis Wilkerson (-1.1) for the LVP honor. Simmons never really got much better than this–he gave the Brew crew 1 WAR in 1985, before costing the Braves a combined 1 win as a utility man over the next three years. Retiring at age 39, Simmons might’ve been enshrined if he had kept up his consistency into his late 30s.

While Simmons was arguably Hall-worthy, there’s no arguing over these next two. Well, there actually is a fair amount of arguing over this next guy, but…never mind.

2. Pete Rose

Career WAR: 80.3

LVP year/WAR: 1983/-1.9

Classification: End-of-career decline

Yes, the LVP in back-to-back years was a very valuable player overall. Surprised? Well, that’s allowable–when you started reading this, you probably had no idea what you were reading in the first place, much less if it would involve two exceptional players performing uncharacteristically poorly in two consecutive years.

Moving on…Rose hardly needs an introduction, but I’ll give him one anyway. Seventeen All-Star nods (1965, 1967-71, 1973-82, 1985); a three-time batting champion (1968-69, 1973) and three-time World Series champion (1975-76, 1980); two Gilded Gloves (1969-70); a Silver Slugger in 1981; the NL ROTY¹⁸ and MVP in 1963 and 1973, respectively; and one of the better (and most deserved)¹⁹ nicknames in baseball. Plus, there was that whole 4,256 hits thing, but nobody cares about that.

Rose spent most of his career with the Reds, winning two of his three championships with them. The third? That was won with the Phillies, with whom he spent five mostly forgettable years at the end of his career. After averaging 4.7 WAR over his first sixteen seasons with the Reds (and being the fourth-most valuable player in baseball over that span), Rose only earned 3.8 WAR in the next five years combined. To be fair, he was at least middling for the first four years, finishing above replacement level in each. In the last year (1983), however, he was anything but middling–and not in a good way.

1983 wasn’t a particularly great year for hitters–the aggregate MLB triple-slash was .261/.325/.389; nonetheless, Rose was still considerably below thoe numbers. Never one to hit for power (his best ISO was .164 in 1969), he sunk to new lows in 1983, pulling a Ben Revere;²º his ISO at season’s end was a repulsive .041, considerably lower than the major league ISO of .128. BABIP also wasn’t too kind to him, as he posted a .256 mark in that department, a good deal below the major league BABIP of .285. His plate discipline was superb (9.4% and 5% walk and strikeout rates, compared to 8.4% and 13.5%, respectively, for the majors), but this could not compensate for his failings in the other areas, and he ended up with a .245/.316/.286 triple-slash, with a .277 wOBA, 68 wRC+, and -21.6 Off.

He didn’t do himself any favors on the basepaths (-1.5 BsR) or in the field (-8 TZ, -14.7 Def in 1034 innings between first and the oufield), but he was never the greatest in those categories. In this one year, he was an all-bat guy with no bat²¹, and that usually doesn’t have good results.

When all was said and done, Rose’s WAR was -1.9, a figure that easily bested Dave Stapleton (-0.7) for the LVP title. One last note on Rose: Unlike the #1 player on this list, people seem to be cognizant of Rose’s awfulness in his LVP year–probably because Rose’s year occured near the end of his career, and he never received a chance to outshine it. This next guy, though? Well…

1. Roberto Clemente 

Career WAR: 80.5

LVP year/WAR: 1955/-0.9

Classification: Start-of-career bump

Yeah, I’d say he made up for one bad season. Either that, or fifteen All-Star games (1960-67, 1969-72)²², twelve consecutive Gold Gloves²³ (1961-72), four batting crowns (1961, 1964-65, 1967), the NL MVP (1966), the WS MVP (1971), and 80.1 career WAR were all for naught.

Despite all of the undeniable awesomeness of Clemente’s career as a whole, there is still that one blemish on his record: his less-than-perfect rookie year. After being drafted by the Pirates in 1954, Clemente was given the opportunity to start immediately, and the outcome wasn’t very good.

Clemente was never a particularly patient hitter, with a career BB% of 6.1%; in 1955, however, he was especially anxious, with a 3.6% BB% that was a good deal below the major league-average of 9.5%, and was the second-worst individual figure in the majors²⁴. He didn’t strike out that much, as his 12% K% wasn’t too much worse than the major league-average of 11.4%, and was identical to his career rate.

Always a high-BABIP guy (with a career number of .343), Clemente’s balls were unable to find holes in 1955, as he had a BABIP of .282 that, while being higher than the major league BABIP of .272, was still the second-lowest of Clemente’s career. His power also hadn’t developed yet²⁵, as his .127 ISO (which was also similar to the major league ISO of .136) was much lower than his career ISO of .158. Overall, Clemente batted .255/.284/.382, with a .294 wOBA, 73 wRC+, and -18.5 Off. His baserunning wasn’t much of a factor (-1.3 runs, compared to 2.1 total for his career), but on defense, he was substandard, putting up a -4.6 Def that was 21st out of 31 outfielders²⁶.

This all coalesced into a WAR of -0.9, which allowed Clemente to beat Don Mueller (-0.7) for the LVP title by a narrow margin. It would take Clemente a few years to really get going; from 1956 to 1959, he was worth a modest 8.9 WAR²⁷ (44th in the majors) as he struggled through various injuries. By 1960, though, he was healthy, and would contribute 72.7 WAR (fourth in the majors) from then until…well, you know.

***

What does all of this mean? Well, the average major league player is worth 2.97 wins over the course of their career; the average player that won an LVP is worth 6.04 wins over the course of their career. Impacted by outliers, you say? Even when the ten players listed here are taken out, the average career WAR of the remaining 133 is 3.05–slightly better than for every player. Looking a little deeper, we can see that of the 16,292 players with a plate appearance, 852 (or 5.2%) are worth 20 or more wins over the course of their careers. For LVPs? 15 out of 143, or 10.5%²⁸.

Is this good news for Eric Hosmer and Adeiny Hechavarria? Possibly. Would assuming this is good news for Hosmer and Hechavarria be drawing a causation from a correlation? Probably. I don’t know. What do I know? I know that if you read this all of the way through, I just wasted a sizable chunk of your time. And in my book, that is a job well done.

——————————————————————————————————-

¹Or the 30th, technically. Whatever.

²As far as I can tell, that’s an original joke. Feel free to chastise me if I’m wrong.

³How exactly do I cite the Def stat? Is it a plural type of thing, like “Player X had 5 Defs last year”, or a singular, like…well, like I wrote in the post?

⁴Spellcheck, you have crossed a line.

⁵The worst fielder in the majors, according to Def? Carlos Beltran and his -21.4. Yes, the three-time Gold Glove-winning, two-time Fielding Bible-winning Carlos Beltran. Yes, I’m also unsure how to react.

Why has no one else realized this, though? Cameron? Sullivan? God forbid, Cistulli? I’m looking at you all! Write something about this, or else I’ll be forced to!

⁶You know, the Possibly Affiliated With Substances That May Or May Not Enhance Performance Era.

⁷Hey, it’s South Park’s words, not mine.

⁸Versalles’ career was also rather notable–and not just for his abnormal appellation.

⁹To be fair, every hitter had a down year in 1968.

¹ºOne doesn’t receive too many opportunities to type this (much to the chagrin of Mr. Keri).

¹¹According to the B-R bullpen, there were only two–count ’em, two–fair balls ever hit out of Griffith. TWO! In 51 motherfucking seasons! So Safeco ain’t so bad, I guess.

¹²Get it? ‘Cuz Parker did…and Williams did…oh, never mind.

¹³Not a typo (read on).

¹⁴Sorry, force of habit (I’m a Ravens fan).

¹⁵In a manner not dissimilar to a controversial shortstop of our era (or to the next player on the list), Parker was always one whose reputation overshadowed his production in the field, as neither basic statistics (.965 career fielding percentage, 137th out of 167 players over the course of his career) nor advanced statistics (-127.5 career Def, 688th out of 704 players over the course of his career) were particularly fond of his work with the glove.

¹⁶Actually, every Yankees defender hit a new low in 2005, as their team defense was the lowest of any team in the UZR era (-141.7 runs); this was due in no small part to the horrifying outfield of Williams, Gary Sheffield (-26 UZR), and Hideki Matsui (-15.2 UZR).

¹⁷I’ll have more on that in the coming weeks.

¹⁸How does one abbreivate Rookie of the Year? ROTY, RotY, or some combination of the two?

¹⁹Deserved on more than one level.

²ºI shouldn’t need to explain what I mean by that. Also, Rose pulled a Ben Revere in 1984 and 1986, albeit in non-qualifying seasons.

²¹I know I’ve heard that expression before–I think it was used to describe Jesus Montero–but I can’t seem to find where it was used.

²²No, I didn’t do my math wrong–from 1959 to 1962, MLB had two All-Star games.

²³I was going back and forth about whether to call this one gilded; over the indicated time span, Clemente was eighth among outfielders in Def–quite good, but not the best (as winning a Gold Glove in each year would imply).

²⁴It was not, however, the worst mark of his career, as he would post walk rates of 2.3% and 3.3% in 1956 and 1959, respectively.

²⁵In terms of power, Clemente was a late peaker, with five of his six highest ISOs coming during or after his age-31 season (1966). I’d be interested in knowing how common that is.

²⁶For whatever reason, defensive records for each individual outfield position only go back to 1956–any time before that, it’s all just lumped into “Outfield”. Also, for that matter, innings played on defense only go back to that date as well, which doesn’t seem to make sense, given that play-by-play data is available back then.

²⁷Interestingly enough, Clemente’s greatest defensive seasons were during this period. He had 20.7 Def in 1958, and 19.3 in 1957; his next-best season with the glove was in 1968 (16.8).

²⁸The other five (besides the ten listed here): Milt Stock (22.3 career WAR, -2.7 in 1924); Alvin Davis (21.1 career WAR, -1.6 in 1991); Raul Ibanez (20.5 career WAR, -1.7 in 2011); Jason Bay (20.3 career WAR, -1.1 in 2007); and Buck Weaver (20.3 career WAR, -1.1 in 1912).

Adam Wainwright pitched a decent game Monday night in Game 3 of the NLCS, throwing 7 innings and giving up 6 hits, no walks and striking out 5. He had a game score of 62, usually a sign of a well-pitched game, and he ended up with the loss because the Cardinals offense chose to take the night off. Brian Kenny (@MrBrianKenny) of the MLB Network started a movement called KillTheWin, his quixotic effort to have the win eliminated as a baseball statistic. I wrote a couple posts at my blog Beyond The Scorecard because I thought it was an interesting idea and seemed like a fun issue to research and will include the links at the end of this post, but Wainwright’s game got me thinking–how often in the postseason is a pitcher not justly rewarded for a good effort?

As the use of starting pitchers has changed over time, the win has become a far less effective metric in judging pitcher effectiveness. I don’t remember how I stumbled across using a game score of 60 as my marker of effectiveness (probably at Kenny’s suggestion) and like any other single number it’s not the entire story of a pitching performance, but it grants the opportunity to separate pitching effectiveness from a lack of offensive production or bad defense. Including Monday’s game there have been 1,393 postseason games played since 1903, meaning there have been 2,786 starts in postseason history–this chart shows the breakdown of wins, losses and no-decisions for those starters in that time frame:

In the postseason, starting pitchers won almost 36% of their starts. This covers the entire spectrum of postseason play, from the games in the early 1900s when a pitcher typically finished what he started all the way to examples like Saturday where Anibal Sanchez was removed after 6 innings (and 116 pitches)…and throwing a no-hitter. Different times, to be sure. With this context, this chart shows how often a pitcher who had a game score of 60 or greater was credited with the win:

Definitely an improvement over the general trend, but still, a pitcher who pitches well enough to attain a game score of 60 or greater has done all he can–he’s given up few hits and walks and struck out a decent number of hitters. In short, he’s kept base runners off base, the primary job of a pitcher and almost 35% of the time has nothing to show for it, or even worse, is tagged with a loss. This chart shows these numbers since the playoffs were expanded in 1969:

The introduction of relievers definitely hurt the cause of these starting pitchers, with almost 40% of pitchers who threw very good games not receiving a win. On the flip side, it is gratifying to see that only around 9% of wins go to pitchers who were the beneficiaries of being on the right side of 13-12 scores or games along those lines–justice exists somewhere. This last chart shows the record by game score stratification:

Who was that unlucky pitcher with a game score greater than 90 who received the loss? Nolan Ryan in Game 5 of the 1986 NLCS.

The 10-15 regular readers of my blog hopefully are aware that I typically write with my tongue firmly lodged in my cheek, and the win is so entrenched in baseball lore that removing it as a point of discussion simply won’t happen, but it doesn’t mean that it has to receive the emphasis it does. When we have the wealth of data that sites like FanGraphs places at our fingertips, we don’t have to rely on a metric that was formed at the inception of organized baseball that is a relic today, particularly one that doesn’t give an accurate portrayal of pitching performance around 35% of the time. Kill The Win–maybe not, but we can certainly de-emphasize it.

#KillTheWin blog posts:

The first one, which lays out definitions and rationale

The second one, which expands it

A final one, an exercise in absurdity

Throughout the pre-sabermetric revolution days of baseball, the statistics that determine fielding ability (namely errors and fielding percentage) had generated much criticism of fielding stats and undeserving gold glove award winners (Derek Jeter et al), and had kept fielding ability a mystery. However, this mystery in part led to the sabermetric revolution in baseball statistics. In the current day and age, with improved measures of performance available publicly, measuring fielding ability is somewhat less of an enigma, but still far from perfect.

One of the most often used fielding metrics in this day and age is UZR or Ultimate Zone Rating (click the link for an excellent FanGraphs explanation). Instead of counting perceived plays and errors, UZR records every batted ball hit to each of the numerous zones on the baseball field at each trajectory and the runs lost/saved as the fielder gets to the ball or falls short. This is found by matching the average result of the play with the Run Expectancy Matrix. Therefore, UZR provides a very accurate measure of how valuable that fielder was in terms of runs saved/lost over the course of the season.

However, there are major problems with UZR. Sample size issues cause large fluctuations from month to month and even year to year. Moreover, it does not provide a stable basis of fielding ability. Even when all players’ impacts are averaged to a constant, UZR/150, averaged to runs saved/lost per 150 defensive games, the metric is very volatile.

The reasons behind this might actually be easier to identify and correct than you might think. Let’s face it: not all fielders get the same amount of balls hit to them in the same place at the same trajectory within the same number of outs or innings. Infielders with a good knuckleballer on the mound and a slap hitter at the plate are going to get more grounders to each zone than infielders whose teams have fly ball pitchers on the mound and face lots of power hitters at the plate.

However, while the actual amounts may fluctuate from pitcher to pitcher and hitter to hitter, many fielders get a decent sample size of each batted ball to each zone over the course of multiple seasons. Even with a staff of fly ball pitchers, infielders will still handle their fair share of ground balls to each zone over the course of a season. So if there was a way to average all the pitchers and hitters together and measure the value and frequency of making a play in each zone based on the entire AL, NL, or MLB* average batted ball chart, then we could create a similar metric that would be more predictive, rather than purely descriptive.

*The purpose of separating the leagues is the discrepancy of hitting ability with the DH in the AL and the increased frequency of bunts (from pitchers) in the NL.

If we take the average percentage of batted balls to each zone with each trajectory for the AL, NL, or MLB and multiply that by the average runs saved/lost for plays made or missed in that zone, we can find a universal batted ball sample from which to apply the fielders’ impact. While this would not be directly proportional to the runs saved/lost for the fielder during that season for that pitching staff and the batters faced, it would be a metric independent of the impact that the pitcher and hitter has on the fielders. It would measure pure fielding ability over multiple seasons in the form of runs saved, but unbiased by the specific ratio of batted balls per zone and trajectory hit to the fielder over the seasons.

Predictive UZR will have sample size issues but when taken over multiple seasons, a starting fielder should get his fair share of batted balls hit to each zone with each trajectory. The percentages for his success rates at each zone and trajectory can then be applied not to the actual ratio of batted balls per zone hit his way (from his team’s pitching staff and hitters faced) but rather the average ratio of batted balls per zone hit in the entire AL, NL, or MLB.

Both UZR and Predictive UZR are very valuable for different things. UZR is a good reflection of the fielder’s direct impact on defense for the season. However, this might not accurately reflect the fielder’s true talent level because of the assortment of batted balls hit his way. Predictive UZR, while not a concrete reflection of the past runs saved, is a more pure measure of fielding ability. It can provide a number that, when compared to UZR, tells which fielder got lucky and which fielder did not, based on his pitching staff and the hitters faced. Another interesting twist the concept of Predictive UZR brings is that it can be based on the average batted ball chart of teams, divisions, and differing pitching staffs in addition to the AL, NL, or MLB. So a fielder’s projected direct impact, or UZR, can be transferred more easily as he moves from team to team, forming the basis of more accurate fielding projections.

Predictive UZR is not by any means a substitute to UZR, but rather complements it and works with it in intriguing ways. It is a concept worth looking into that has the potential to leave fans, media and front office personnel better informed about the game of baseball.

Nik Oza
Georgetown Class of 2016
Follow GSABR on twitter: @GtownSports

Previously, I took a look at the benefits of a legally nebulous, but somewhat unlikely nine-man defense. In this piece, we’ll look at a group of other tactics that can be employed in the new one-game Wild Card Round that the MLB has created. This time, we’ll take a more traditional “outside the box” approach, if such a thing is possible.

With the addition of the new playoff round comes the opportunity for roster gaming. Being AL-centric here for a moment, we saw this last year in particular on the AL side. While the other three teams (Cardinals, Braves, Rangers) selected 3 starting pitchers to their Wild Card roster, the Orioles went with only 1, Joe Saunders. Sure, Arrieta, Hunter, Matusz all had starts in the year, but by September they were all in the pen. This freed up some roster room for Buck, which he primarily filled with other relief pitchers.

Now, that’s not the worst idea in the world, but given the uniqueness of the one-game playoff, why not make unique roster decisions?

First, as I mentioned above.  The selection and usage of pitchers seems paramount.  I’m of the opinion that one should almost play the entire game as if it were a game in extra innings.  Limit your pitchers to 2 innings or so, potentially even starting with your closer.  Now, that gets into the mental preparedness issues as to whether or not a closer could appreciate or handle coming into a game in the first inning. However, if he were aware that he is only going to be pitching the first inning, perhaps this may not be as big of an obstacle.

The main benefit to this is that you are able to rest your starters for a potential 5-game series against the best team in the league.  Additional benefits exist in the ability to play matchups, and remove a pitcher who gives up more than a run or two.   I would imagine this would result in selecting mostly (all?) relief pitchers, with an “emergency” starter, similar to how the All-Star Game has worked as of late. I would imagine employing this strategy would lead you to want to carry 11 or 12 pitchers on your roster.  That may limit your options for position players, which brings us up to point two.

Second, depending upon the comfort one has with their team’s starting lineup, the logical roster choice is to select speed.  In a one-game scenario, the likelihood of needing a hot bat to add to the lineup is low, and the value of a stolen base, potentially late in the game, can be incredibly high, as we saw in the 2004 ALCS.  Perhaps the inclusion of an emergency catcher would be a good idea, if you’re one of those who lives in perpetual fear of random foul tips and collisions.

The third and final element is for managers and players to put their ego at the door.  Here we live in the age of the immense infield shift, with the third baseman playing behind second base in some instances.  In a one-game playoff, the correct move is for the player to bunt the ball down the line where no defensive player exists.  Sure, I agree that over the long term of a season, you’re better off with the potential for a double or home run, but given the difference in value of having a player on the bases in one game (plus the potential that for the next at bat, the defensive team would not shift as dramatically) increases the likelihood of success for the team as a whole.  And besides, it even opens up the opportunity for the rare bunt double.   I’m not the first to make this argument, though.  This has existed since at least the 1946 World Series, when Ted Williams was out-dueled by Manager Eddie Dyer of the Cardinals.  For the record, Williams batted .200 that Series, with all of his hits being singles.

Ultimately, this boils down to one thing: small ball is the name of the game.  Even teams full of power hitters can benefit from not having to rely on the long ball to win a ball game, especially one as important as the Wild Card Game.   We only have to look back one year to see an example of a power team’s bats going cold at just the wrong time, with the Rangers, the MLB’s best offense in runs per game, only able to put together one run, while their opponents scored five with only one extra-base hit (and three sacrifices!).

What do FanGraphers think?  What strategies that are not typically employed would be worth the effort in a one-game playoff?

Note: I have no idea if I’m the first to do this, but quite frankly I don’t care.

It’s been one crazy season for Victor Martinez. In the first half, he was one of the worst players in baseball, with an 88 wRC+ and -0.6 WAR in 392 plate appearances; however, this was largely due to a .269 BABIP, and when his BABIP increased (to .372), his wRC+ and WAR (140 and 1.1, respectively, in 223 plate appearances) increased with it. This, though, is not the focus of my writing today. I chose, instead, to focus on one of the oddest statistics of the 2013 season, and one that truly proves that this blog is aptly named.

V-Mart has never been regarded as a good fielding catcher, and the stats confirm this–since he entered the league in 2002, he’s third-last among catchers in DRS and fifth-last in stolen base runs saved. He is, however, a (comparatively) much better fielding first baseman, with a career UZR/150 of 2.3¹ that would rank 12th out of 19 first baseman this year if he qualified. Throughout this season, Martinez has been mainly a DH², with 128 games started there, and 17 started in the field; of those 17, 11 have been at the 3-spot. He has played 97 innings at first base, which comes out to a little less than 9 innings per start there. So, obviously, we’re dealing with a very small sample size here; and yet, the larger point remains:

Victor Martinez has the highest UZR/150 among first baseman with at least 90 innings.

Surprised? Well, you probably shouldn’t be, as you read the title of this article before perusing the text that lies beneath it, so you probably should’ve seen this coming. In a larger sense, though, you probably are surprised, as this isn’t exactly Albert Pujols we’re talking about here. As I outlined above, Martinez isn’t a particularly bad fielding first baseman⁴, and this is obviously a ridiculously minuscule sample size⁵, but he’s certainly not this good. What, then, has changed? 

First, let’s look at his non-UZR advanced fielding stats. He has had 19 balls hit to his defensive zone (officially, Balls In Zone, or BIZ), and has made a play on 13 of them (just Plays–I guess they ran out of anagrams), for a Revised Zone Rating (RZR) of .684. That figure, if he had enough innings to qualify, would be the worst in the majors by a long shot–the lowest right now is Lyle Overbay, with a .766 RZR–and is also the worst figure of his career.

One thing he is doing, however, is making a lot of Out-Of-Zone plays, or OOZ. Although it isn’t included in UZR, OOZ is still an interesting statistic: it measures the amount of plays a fielder has successfully made when out of his defensive “zone”. Martinez has five OOZs in 97 innings this year; if he were to have played, say, ten times that amount, or 970 innings (about 110 games), he would have 50 OOZs, far more than the current leader, Anthony Rizzo, who has 41. In this regard, though, Martinez’s performance isn’t that different from his career as a whole, as he has 49 career OOZs in 1299.1 career innings (in 163 games) at first.

It’s when we look at the stats that go into UZR that we start to see some key differences. In case you need a refresher (or are simply unedumacated), UZR is composed of four parts: Double Play runs (DPR), Outfield Arm runs (ARM), Range runs (RngR) and Error runs (ErrR). Martinez doesn’t have any DPRs, as he hasn’t initiated any double plays, and because he has yet to play in the outfield⁶, he has no ARMs (his career values for these two are 0 and -0.2, respectively).

It then comes down to the other two components: RngR and ErrR. For his career, he has values of 1.9 and 0.4, respectively, for these stats; in 2013, however, he has values of 1.2 and 0.3, respectively. Again, if we spread these out over ten times his current playing time at first (to get 970 innings, or ~110 games), we get a 12 RngR and a 3 ErrR. While the latter figure is rather formidable–it would lead the league this year–it is the former that truly sets him apart. An⁷ RngR of 12 as a first baseman would be the fifth-highest ever; yes, UZR only goes back to 2002, but that’s still saying something. The only better seasons would be Pujols in 2007 (21.0)(!), Adrian Gonzalez last year (14.6), Travis Lee in 2003 (13.4), and Justin Morneau in 2005 (12.2).

Obviously, this whole exercise should be taken with a grain of salt. 97 innings of defense is an incredibly small sample size, and Martinez’s track record suggests this is almost definitely a fluke. What, then, does this mean? Fluke or not, the Tigers continue to start the ironically-named Prince Fielder and his -4.9 UZR (-4.8 UZR/150) at first base; this point was brought up earlier this year. Despite the well–documented historical awesomeness of their rotation (to say nothing of that guy over at the hot corner), the Tigers would only get the 3rd seed if the season was to end today, and their defense at first base is a big reason why. While his health concerns would make a full-time move to first unfeasible, playing him there a little more often (at least more than 11 times) certainly couldn’t hurt.

Overall, though, what do I take away from this? Well, as I said earlier…

—————————————————————————————————————————

¹It should also be noted that his career UZR (not adjusted for playing time) is 2.1, as he has played roughly a full season’s worth of games (163, to be exact) at first base over the course of his career.

²Though you wouldn’t know it from looking at his FanGraphs page (which identifies him as a catcher, despite him having caught all of 15 innings this year).

³Really, SpellCheck? “Should’ve” isn’t a word? You know, I don’t recall aksing for your opinion, SpellCheck.

⁴Although to be fair, he did do this.

⁵Especially since this is a defensive stat, for which a sample size of three years is recommended for the best analysis.

⁶Don’t tell Leyland I said that–he might take it as advice.

⁷A or An? I suppose it depends on if you say the anagram or the full name.

(Author’s note: This is the first of a series in nontraditional tactics that may be advantageous in a one-game playoff scenario)

It certainly wouldn’t be earth-shattering for me to tell you about baseball being heaped in tradition.  In fact, to most of us, that’s the appeal.  The tradition. The consistency. The ability to reconnect with old times, making the comparisons between Manny Machado and Brooks Robinson without fear of having to factor in the large changes of the game.  The traditionalists out there, the ones who surely disagree with interleague play, and maybe even the designated hitter, make up a large part of the viewing audience.  Unfortunately for them, this article is probably not for them.

With the way that sports have evolved in the past few years, the future seems to be innovation.  In football, there was the Wildcat Offense, which was only outlasted by the (similarly gimmicky) Spread Offense.  Of course, who can forget New Orleans opting to onside kick to begin the second half of the Super Bowl, something that “common sense” would dictate is a terrible idea?  Meanwhile in hockey, Uwe Krupp, coach of the German national team has decided that when on 5 on 3 power play, he will pull their goalie.  While football and hockey are more prone to innovation, it is surprising that, for the most part, baseball offense and defense is almost exactly the same as it was in 1950.  Or even 1900.  Sure, the traditionalists will cite the Designated Hitter, the rise of the relief pitcher who exists solely to get one out, the Joe Maddon-esque shifting that seems so prevalent.  However, the shifts that we’ve seen have assumed the traditional positioning of defensive elements.

It’s time to change that.

Now, like I have mentioned, what I’m about to propose is extremely radical. The reactions I’ve gotten from people I’ve told is twofold: one group telling me that I’m an idiot and it would never work; the other telling me that I should write a letter to the manager of my favorite MLB team to ensure success in a one-game playoff (likely the best venue for such a suggestion).

It’s simple.  Move the catcher.  For lack of a better name, we’ll call it the nine-man defense.

“What on Earth are you talking about, the catcher can’t move, he’s there to call pitches, position his glove, and of course catch the ball!”

Relax, traditionalists.  I realize the problems.  The passed third strike or fourth ball, the runners on base concerns.  This isn’t about that.

However, we’ve all surely seen the following: fewer than three balls or two strikes, the pitch is in the dirt, skipping past the catcher, and the ball is replaced by the umpire.

Did you see that sequence?  The catcher did nothing.  He sat there, providing marginal defensive benefit, while he could have been occupying valuable defensive space.

“Okay, but the rulebook says that’s how it has to be!”

Not exactly.  The rule book only has a couple of fleeting references to the role of the catcher, surprisingly.  The first is Rule 1.12 which cites that the catcher is allowed to have a different glove than most other positional players and section 1.16 which permits a protective mask.  You’ll note a complete absence of a mention requiring that a catcher be in the catcher’s position for every pitch.  Remove the mask and the glove, and your catcher is just your run of the mill positional player.  The chest protector and knee pads, according to the rules, may remain on.  The second section (rulebook owners or adept googlers, refer to section 4.03) references the requirement that only the catcher is permitted to be positioned in foul territory during an at-bat, and that the catcher must be positioned behind home plate.  However, that does not say that a catcher is a REQUIRED fielder. I’ll leave it up to the Joe Maddons of the world to determine the optimal position of the catcher, my initial suggestion would be to place him near first base, and shift the second baseman to directly behind the bag, while moving the first baseman to the previous position of the second baseman.  Perhaps there would be more value in a fourth outfielder,  that discussion is beyond the scope of this hypothetical discussion.

So that’s it.  That’s all the rules have to say about the catcher.  It’s almost silly how few references there are to the role of the catcher in the rulebook.

“Okay, Chris.  I acknowledge that there may be some value to this, but I just have to think there are entirely too many downfalls.”

As I see it, there are quite a few downfalls to the approach.  The balance of trade on these downfalls as compared to the opportunity will be left up  to you.

One: The associated hassle of moving the catcher from “behind the plate” to “in the field” and back (once a third ball or second strike has been thrown, or a baserunner has gotten on base.)  Of course, baseball has had to deal with the complaints about long games, this does absolutely nothing to rectify it.  In fact, every pitch flying to the backstop might frustrate everyone involved.  Which is why it would have to be done in a one-game playoff type scenario (or series deciding game), segueing us perfectly to downside number two.

Two: The rules committee  would come down hard on this loophole after the first application of the nine-man defense.  There’s no getting around this.  This is a nuclear defense.  It’s only to be used in the most critical of situations.  Indeed, even the on-field crew may have difficulty in permitting it, which brings us to point number three.

Three: The poor home-plate umpire is just left behind the plate to have to somehow deal with being directly thrown at with 90-100 MPH pitches.  I feel sorry for the umpires, and this may be why I’ve gotten a less-than-receptive response from the MLB umpires I have contacted. My only remedy to this issue is a simple one: the umpire move to the side…or work on his reflexes.

Four: The defending team is now susceptible to a bunt.  Now, this may seem the case, but with a fifth infielder, the corner players would be able to play a lot closer in on the infield without worrying about range as much.  The additional infielder perhaps discourages the practice of bunting by having true fielders located along the baselines in a position to better field bunts.  In fact, it may make the fielding of bunts simpler without the opportunity for the pitcher to collide with the catcher running out from behind the plate to field a ball.

Five: The relatively minor concerns about pitch selection and positioning.  It may take some time for a pitcher to adjust, given a lifetime of throwing pitches to a target, but it is not unreasonable to think that pitches could be called from the dugout, or even the catcher positioned in the field.  As for targeting, I would hope that is something that the team would address with their pitching staff before implementing such a plan.

That’s it.  For many, even the non-traditionalists, I realize this is a quantum leap in the defensive mentality of baseball teams, normally limited to an infield shift, or the ever-so-rare 5-infielder-2-outfielder-hope-to-keep-the-ball-in-the-infield-to-save-the-game-in-the-ninth defense.  And sure, the rules committee may take exception, but in a one-game playoff, which MLB has tacitly admitted an affinity for (by forcing an annual one-game playoff), this seems like it would certainly cause a buzz about October baseball.  And after all, isn’t that the point?

Okay FanGraphs, what do you guys think?

Of course, the concept of “stuff” is very subjective, and my formula is not so much of an attempt to quantify a subjective concept as it is an attempt to measure how well pitchers do things we associate with great stuff. Because I used Pitch f/x data exclusively, the ratings were limited to pitchers from 2007 to the present.

My formula is ((4*O-Zone Swing% *O-Zone Whiff%)+(3*Whiff%)+(5*Zone-Whiff%)+(2*IFFB%)*(FBv/100)*(4))

I will probably tinker with the formula, and will welcome any suggestions with regards to improving it. I have only applied it to starting pitchers. Of course it can be applied to relievers, but their scores run much higher unless some kind of a “relief penalty” is applied. The STUFF ratings for all starting pitches who threw at least 160 innings since 2007 run between 3.4 and 9.7. The following list presents the top 15 career STUFF pitchers since 2007.

1. Rich Harden 9.7. If you’re having trouble remembering just how filthy Harden could be, visit his player page. Harden got swings and misses like no other starter. In 2008 he had an unearthly 48 ERA- and 68 xFIP- despite the fact that injuries had already started to take their toll on his fastball velocity, as it dropped to 91.7, compared to 94.1 the year before. In 141 innings in 2009, he got whiffs on 22.6% of swings on pitches in the zone. Max Scherzer, the 2013 leader in that category, gets whiffs in the zone at an 18.4% clip. When Aroldis Chapman averaged 100 mph on his fastball in 2010, he sat at 21.9%. Unfortunately, a litany of injuries would decimate Harden’s career, and he was recently released by the Twins, an organization known for their disdain for swing and miss stuff.

2. Matt Harvey 9.4. The young right-hander with the dynamic fastball places near the top in all five of the STUFF factors, with only Scherzer, Harden, and Escobar topping his 17.6 Zone-Whiff%. Besides the fastball, Harvey also features a slider, curveball, and changeup. Harvey’s plethora of filthy offerings produces whiffs on over a quarter of his pitches overall. Furthermore, Harvey is one of the rare pitchers who has actually experienced an increase in fastball velocity since his debut season.

3. Yu Darvish 9.2. Darvish uses his assortment of pitches to produce whiffs on over half of swings at pitches he throws outside of the zone, easily the best in the sample. Combine that with a whiff rate of 15.9%  for swings on pitches in the zone and you get an overall whiff rate of 28.6%, also the best in the sample. Pitch f/x credits Darvish with six different pitches, four of which he throws at least 12 percent of the time. Though Darvish averages 92.9 mph on his fastball, he has thrown his slider nearly as often as his four-seamer and two-seamer combined. The unconventional approach has produced five games of 14+ strikeouts in 2013.

4. Kelvim Escobar 8.9. Escobar only had one year of data, but what a year it was. At the age of 31, Escobar’s fastball velocity surged to 94.1, higher than any of the pre-pitch f/x years, and he utilized an excellent changeup to get whiffs on over a third of swings at pitches he threw outside of the zone and a quarter of swings overall. However, in spring training of 2008, Escobar was diagnosed with a shoulder injury that required surgery and except for a 5 inning stint in 2009, he never returned to the majors.

5. Michael Pineda 8.7. Like Escobar, Pineda only has one year of data in the sample due to shoulder surgery. Elite fastball velocity combined with a slider that helped generate swings on a third of the pitches he throws out of the zone and contact on less than sixty percent of those swings earns him this ranking. The big righty also used his height to get one of the highest infield fly rates in the sample. Pineda was placed on the DL shortly after an August 2 rehab start resulted in stiffness in his shoulder, and it appears unlikely that the righthander will pitch again in 2013.

6. Matt Moore 8.6.While Moore’s fastball velocity has dipped steadily since he came into the league in 2011, its overall average is still 93.6. Moore’s ranking is based heavily on his 2012 STUFF rating of 9.3, his 2013 rating has fallen to 7.4. Moore has battled elbow soreness this year, and hopefully this will not be a long-term issue and he can return to the form that generated a dominant 19.0 Zone-Whiff% in 2012.

7. Francisco Liriano 8.6. Liriano’s slider has long been one of the best pitches in the game, and only Darvish can top his whiff rate on pitches outside the zone. Since joining the Pirates, Liriano has been using the slider even more, throwing it on 37.1% of his pitches. Liriano is also throwing his changeup more than he ever has before. While his 13.1 Zone-Whiff% in 2013 is one of the lowest numbers of his career, the offspeed pitches have resulted in a 36.1% chase rate, the highest of his career. It’s anyone’s guess as to how long Liriano’s oft-troubled elbow holds up, but Pirates fans should enjoy the ride while it does.

8. Cole Hamels 8.5. A master of deception, Hamels’ changeup has helped him produce a career whiff-rate of 24.5%. Among pitchers on this list, Hamels 90.9 mph fastball is faster than only fellow changeup artist Johan Santana. However, the 8-9 mph difference between his fastball and changeup produces a 33.8 chase rate, the 5th highest in the sample, and his 37.0 rate in 2013 leads the majors. Hamels has also been very durable, among the top 15 STUFF pitchers, only Justin Verlander has thrown more innings.

9. Stephen Strasburg 8.5. While Strasburg’s fastball velocity has fallen from its pre-Tommy John high of 97.6, his 95.9 average is still tops Felipe Paulino, the next closest in the sample by 0.7 mph. While we will probably not see the pure electricity of the pre-injury Strasburg which produced a 9.5 STUFF rating in 2010, Strasburg still gets whiffs on over 15% of swings on pitches in the zone and 25% overall. If the Nationals’ controversial innings-management plan pays dividends and the 25 year-old can stay healthy, he should be getting whiffs for years to come.

10. Max Scherzer 8.3.  It seems fitting that a noted sabermetrician would obtain a high ranking on a list based on Pitch f/x and batted-ball data. To the misfortune of AL hitters, Scherzer has vastly improved his secondary pitches while maintaining his fastball velocity. Before his trade to the Tigers, Scherzer threw his fastball over two-thirds of the time. With the Tigers, Scherzer’s fastball usage has decreased each year, and his use of secondary pitches, particularly his changeup, has increased. Not surprisingly, this has resulted in higher chase and whiff rates, and his Zone-Whiff%  of 19.9 since 2012 leads the majors.

11. Clayton Kershaw 8.1. Kershaw burst onto the scene in 2008 as a 20 year-old rookie with a 94 mph fastball and 73 mph 12-6 curveball. Since then he has added a slider to make life even more miserable for hitters. Kershaw ranks near the top in all five of the STUFF factors. Kershaw appears to be the odd bird that can use his pitch arsenal as much to suppress BABIP as to generate swings and misses, and this factor probably keeps him from being ranked even higher.

12. Tim Lincecum 8.0. You would be hard-pressed to find a smaller starting pitcher than Lincecum. While that height limits his ability to get infield flies, the dynamic changeup more than compensates for his lack of size. Of the top 15 pitchers, only Darvish and Liriano have higher whiff rates on swings at pitches out of the zone. Lincecum’s fastball velocity has steadily dropped from its high of 94.0 in 2008 to 90.2 in 2013. Since 2011, Lincecum has been throwing a slider more often, and while he has been prone to the longball, he still gets whiffs on a quarter of swings. While Lincecum is no longer the pitcher that won CY Young awards in 2008 and 2009, he is a very intriguing free agent, and at the least, it seems that he could be a dominant reliever.

13. Chris Sale 8.0. The lanky, or perhaps paper-thin lefthander has made a successful transition from the bullpen to the rotation. After experiencing a predictable velocity drop from the move, Sale has actually regained some of that velocity this year, as his fastball has jumped from 91.3 to 92.4. Since moving to the rotation, Sale has added a changeup to go along with his excellent slider. Sale’s herky-jerky sidearm delivery and late movement have helped him generate a 32% chase rate, 5th best among pitchers on this list. While concern’s about Sale’s elbow and durability are certain to persist, Sale is on pace for over 200 innings this year after throwing 192 last year.

14. Johan Santana 7.9. Shoulder troubles robbed Santana of some of his fastball velocity, and his average of 90.3 is the slowest among pitchers in the top 15. However, his changeup was devastating. In its heyday in 2007, Santana had a Zone-Whiff rate of 23.2%. While some of Santana’s best years were in the pre-Pitch f/x era, the Mets still got highlights such as a 36.0 chase rate in 2009, and the no-hitter in 2012. Santana’s changeup also had the effect of suppressing BABIP,  as noted by a .276 career mark. Of the top 15, only youngsters Harvey and Moore can top Santana’s 12.9 IFFB%.

15. Justin Verlander 7.9. It took Verlander a couple of years to fine-tune the curveball, but when he did, he started churning out elite swing-and-miss rates. Since 2012, Verlander has been utilizing the changeup more than the curveball, and it too has produced excellent whiff rates. The secondary offerings go along with an average fastball velocity of 94.8 that only the less battle-tested Stephen Strasburg, Matt Harvey, and Felipe Paulino can top. Since 2007, Verlander has thrown over a 100 more innings than Cole Hamels, the next closest person on this list.

Clearly, the list favors younger, less tested pitchers. But I don’t think there’s anything wrong with that. As pitchers age, their velocity declines, and while Felix Hernandez is a better pitcher throwing 92 then when he was a young flamethrower, he probably doesn’t create the same kind of excitement in fans or fear in hitters when he averaged 96 with his fastball.

I also made a list of the worst 15 starting pitchers by STUFF since 2007. I didn’t think it would be worth anyone’s while to go through the list, but suffice it to say that the worst three were Steve Trachsel, Sidney Ponson, and Livan Hernandez. Yeah, I’d say that sounds about right. Aaron Cook of the 1.9 K/9 in 2012 also made the list. The following table is a comparison of the best and worst 15 starting pitchers since 2007 by STUFF rating.

So the best STUFF pitchers seem to have an ability to limit hits on balls in play and overachieve their peripheral stats, while the worst STUFF pitchers allow hits at slightly above the league average and underachieve their peripherals. Some of this is due to infield flies, which was a factor in the STUFF formula. The best 15 had an IFFB% of 11.0, while the worst 15 had an IFFB% of 7.4. But there are other factors involved. Tim Lincecum has a 7.4 IFFB% and a .296 BABIP while Nick Blackburn has a 8.6 IFFB% and a .309 BABIP while the BABIP of their respective teams since 2007 is .297 and .300. Both of these pitchers are well past the stabilization point for BABIP. So it seems that pitchers with dominant STUFF have some control over hits on balls in play outside of IFFB. Of course I cherrypicked an example, and I’m sure there are counterexamples, but the general idea seems good. Great STUFF can have an effect beyond generating swings and misses.

Earlier in the month I had an idea. It all stemmed from the idea of quantifying the un-quantifiable. I was going to record grit.

A lot of times we hear about how gritty a player is, but it’s tossed around with no real proof. Sure Nick Punto dives into first a lot, but is that really more gritty than stupid? Is a guy like David Eckstein really the grittiest of all gritty players, or can it be a guy we don’t really notice?

To figure all of this out I, along with some help, wrote a formula. The formula is imperfect, because of a lack of reliable sources for things like headfirst slides and broken-up double plays, but it tries and does its job. The formula is as follows:

(((InfH+1stS3+(.5*CS+SB2+1.5*SB3+3*SBH))(2*P/PA+.5*Foul/S%))/(HR+1)+(.1*PA/Seasons)+PitchingAppearances

Where InfH stands for Infield Hits and 1stS3 means first to third on a single, we have found a way to see a players GRIT (Game Rating In Testosterone.) All this stat is designed to show is who works harder to score a run for their team, it doesn’t show you who is better or worse, but it does show who tries.

Using this formula my small team of experts has found David Eckstein to have a career GRIT of 172.16, which is very impressive over a 10-year career, but it’s no Juan Pierre, who has amassed a career GRIT of, wait for it, 1582.

We also found the difference between Martin Prado and Justin Upton, who was the subject of criticism from Diamondbacks GM Kevin Towers who said he wasn’t gritty enough prior to trading him for Prado. We found out that Kevin Towers may have been wrong.

Using their numbers the formula says that Prado has put together a GRIT of 57.93 in his career, where Upton has a GRIT of 68.65, despite playing in one less season. So, Kevin Towers, you may need to rethink your strategy.

Also invented was TeamGRIT, a stat that uses numerous numbers to calculate how hard a team works for each run.

A disclaimer here before I list the GRITs: I am not trying to say that some teams work harder than others, nor am I saying that a high GRIT is more or less valuable than a low GRIT, all these numbers illustrate is that some teams are more comfortable with power numbers to win games, while others are more inclined to small ball.

The formula used is

(((InfH+1.5*BuntHits)+1stS3+2ndDH(.5*CS+SB2+1.5*SB3+3*SBH)(Pitches/PA+.5*Fouls/Strike%)+(GIDPinduced+OFAssists))/(HR+.5*HRA))+(.1*PA/GamesPlayed)

The following are the AL leaders prior to games played on August 7th 2013

Royals – 90.57 (9th in wins)

Indians – 74.77 (6th in wins)

Red Sox – 73.92 (1st in wins)

A’s – 70.57 (5th in wins)

Blue Jays – 61.73 (10th in wins)

Rangers – 56.52 (4th in wins)

Astros – 55.70 (15th in wins)

White Sox – 51.62 (14th in wins)

Rays – 51.10 (2nd in wins)

Angels – 48.98 (12th in wins)

Twins – 46.97 (13th in wins)

Yankees – 45.59 (8th in wins)

Orioles – 40.49 (7th in wins)

Tigers – 30.30 (3rd in wins)

Mariners – 25.90 (11th in wins)

The most interesting numbers to me are those of the Royals and the Tigers. On opposite ends of the spectrum, one is a team that absolutely crushes the ball, everything that comes their way, the Tigers hit it, and they’re fine with it. They don’t feel the need to manufacture runs the way that the Royals do. The Royals seem to grind more to score their runs. More than any other team in the league by a large margin. They, like the Astros at 55 GRITs, are doing everything in their power to score more runs. It doesn’t always work, but there’s something to be said about a team that works to get extra runs and extra outs. If anything, they’re less comfortable with a lead than the Tigers. That isn’t to say the Tigers get lazy, just that they tend to not have to try so much.

In the NL there appears to be a negative correlation between GRIT and wins; I assure you, this is just a coincidence.

NL leaders prior to games played on August 7th 2013

Pirates – 80.83 (2nd in wins)

Rockies – 77.08 (8th in wins)

Marlins – 76.31 (15th in wins)

Brewers – 73.57 (14th in wins)

Mets – 67.33 (11th in wins)

Giants – 64.21 (12th in wins)

Padres – 62.53 (9th in wins)

Phillies – 57.06 (10th in wins)

Dodgers – 51.83 (4th in wins)

Cardinals – 47.67 (3rd in wins)

Nationals – 45.03 (7th in wins)

Cubs – 44.79 (13th in wins)

Diamondbacks – 42.38 (6th in wins)

Reds – 39.99 (5th in wins)

Braves – 31.12 (1st in wins)

The only thing these numbers definitively tell us is that there is a lot more GRIT in the American League, which is a deviation from the stereotype of hard-hitting AL clubs. The longball is less important in the American League, whereas manufacturing runs is a lot more emphasized. In the National League one team stands out from the pack: The Pirates.

They have a GRIT of 80.83 while also being in 2nd place, they are the only team in the top 5 of wins who is also in the top 5 of GRIT. The Pirates also hit a fair amount of home runs, but that’s not enough for them. They aren’t comfortable with just a lead. They want more of a lead. They try their damnedest to score more runs than anyone else by any means necessary. Is this because they spent so many years as a losing team? Possibly, but that’s just a theory.

As I said before, these numbers are not proof that any team is better than another, nor are they proof than any player is better than another, just that some teams and players are GRITtier than others.

So there you have it, your introduction to GRIT.