Moneyball: The Art of Winning an Unfair Game

This is the book that alerted regular fans to the idea of sabermetrics. Joe Morgan famously railed against it; nerds in their basements embraced it; Hollywood decided to make a movie out of it. This is not a stat-filled textbook, but a well-written, entertaining story about the Oakland Athletics of the late 90s and early 00s, featuring Billy Beane as the protagonist.

It starts off telling the tale of a can’t-miss prospect who ended up flaming out in the minors even though he possessed all the tools baseball scouts dream of — a cannon for an arm, a beautiful swing, blinding speed, and the body of a Greek god (he even dated all the prettiest girls in high school!). As a prep prospect, he was even more highly touted than Darryl Strawberry. The name of this player was Billy Beane. Yes, the guy that made it cool to look at stats in your mother’s basement was also the prototypical high school alpha male.

Beane wasn’t just a tremendous athlete; he was also an extremely bright kid, but one who didn’t quite put as much effort into school as he should have. Yet he still almost went to college instead of taking the money to play baseball. He regretted the decision later, but he still managed to work himself up to the top of the A’s organization as their GM. Once there, he decided he would change how things were run.

Moneyball delves into how Beane maximized his resources by selecting college players with great stats instead of high school players with great bodies. It harps on the importance of on-base percentage. It chronicles disagreements between Beane — and his sidekick Paul DePodesta with laptop in tow — and his scouts. It’s about a front office trying its best to discover inefficiencies in the market for baseball players, not about glorifying Billy Beane or a particular type of unathletic player. And while naysayers like to point at the playoff failures of those A’s teams as proof that it doesn’t work, winning 100 games isn’t an easy feat, and the baseball playoffs are as close to a crapshoot as sports come. Although, the next book in this post does shed some light on why “Moneyball” didn’t lead to a World Series title.

It’s been a few years since I read it, but Amazin’ Avenue has created a book club around it and I’m trying to keep up through online means, since I gave my copy to my cousin a year or so ago (I wonder if he ever read it). I would recommend following their posts if you want to pick up the book anytime soon. It’s where anyone interested in the “stathead” movement should begin their reading.

Baseball Between the Numbers: Why Everything You Know About the Game is Wrong

This book from Baseball Prospectus is for anyone who wants to look the baseball with a more critical eye. Most of the stats that populate the book are not very popular in the sabersphere nowadays, but the research and reasoning behind each chapter are still as relevant as ever. There’s the idea of a replacement player and how that is important to assessing a player’s true value, a method of comparing the competitiveness of different leagues (including the minors), a takedown of the perceived importance of the RBI, and plenty of other essential knowledge for any intelligent baseball fan.

There’s also a comparison of Barry Bonds and Babe Ruth and a look at how overpaid Alex Rodriguez is. There’s an argument for a return to the four-man rotation, something I’d love to see make a comeback. There’s a dismantling of the notion that managers actually make a significant difference. There’s even a section which slights how much Rickey Henderson’s stolen-base prowess increased his value as a player. Too much good stuff to lay out in this blog post.

My favorite chapter title has to be “Why Doesn’t Billy Beane’s Shit Work in the Playoffs?”, and it’s definitely one of the more enlightening chapters as well. It shows how the prevailing idea that pitching wins championships is actually somewhat true, that a great rotation has a positive correlation with success in the playoffs. For an example, look at how the Giants won the World Series this year. I guess this is where people who hate “Moneyball” would start reading the book.

Baseball Between the Numbers is just a perfect combination of good writing and good analysis. It doesn’t get too heavy with the stats, providing easy-to-understand charts when needed, and focusing more on the seemingly obvious conclusions which are arrived at after looking at the data, rather than the methodology. Yet everything is still explained enough so you know they are not just making things up nor manipulating the data to fit their agenda. It’s probably my favorite book out of the three which comprise this post.

The Book: Playing the Percentages in Baseball

This is the graduate course in sabermetrics. Do not read this book unless you like — or at the very least, understand — math. There are win expectancy matrices that take up multiple pages. All you have to do is look at Tom Tango’s website for The Book to realize that this is just pure analysis with little regard for enjoyable writing. The Book has, in addition to the usual Table of Contents, a list of the 140 tables in the textbook. That’s what The Book is — a textbook for managing a baseball game. The preface even says this is an attempt to rewrite “the [unwritten] book”.

The Book delves into platooning, the use of starters and relievers, pinch-hitting, sacrifice bunting, stealing bases, the intentional walk, lineup construction, and pretty much anything else that can be quantified. The authors use empirical data from multiple major league seasons to create their probability matrices and averages. If a math-averse person wanted to, they could just read the little boxes at the end of each section to see what “The Book” says on a specific topic without reading the details. An example would be:

Your three best hitters should bat somewhere in the #1, #2, and #4 slots. Your fourth- and fifth-best hitters should occupy the #3 and #5 slots. The #1 and #2 slots will have players with more walks than those in the #4 and #5 slots. From slot #6 through #9 put players in descending order of quality.

This flies in the face of the accepted wisdom of batting your best “overall” hitter 3rd, a fact which was gospel to me growing up.

As I said earlier, the stats mentioned in Baseball Between the Numbers aren’t exactly the darlings of the sabermetrics fan revolution nowadays. While the second book in this list talks about VORP (Value Over Replacement Player) and WARP (Wins Above Replacement Player), The Book uses WAR (Wins Above Replacement). The Book also goes into the creation and derivation of wOBA (weighted On-Base Average), which is an attempt to quantify each contribution from a hitter as accurately as possible. A stat like OPS (On-base Plus Slugging) weighs OBP (On-Base Percentage) and SLG (Slugging) equally, when OBP is about twice as important.

You must be getting the sense that this book is filled with acronyms and numbers and math. Not that Baseball Between the Numbers doesn’t have its hilarious acronyms, but it’s just not as heavy on the mathematical analysis. Or perhaps I just ignored many of the acronyms in Baseball Between the Numbers since no one uses them, even though the ideas behind them are sound.

The Book also explains the idea of WPA (Win Probability Added), which is tied to the probability matrices I mentioned earlier. Basically, this book is what spawned Fangraphs, which is why this is the book that has the popular acronyms. Baseball Prospectus is just not the sabermetric darling of the moment. While their analysis is better than Fangraphs’, most of it is behind a paywall which even I’ve never paid for (but I’ve been thinking about it lately).

So that’s what a degree in sabermetrics looks like. And once you take it, you won’t be able to stay away from websites like Beyond the Box Score, Fangraphs, Baseball-Reference (well, EVERY baseball fan knows this site), and The Book Blog. In addition to reading The Hardball Times website, you’ll order their Annual each year. Maybe you’ll even love the saber-tinted fantasy analysis at Roto Hardball.

If I didn’t make it clear with the last post, I’m keeping track of all these tweets because I know they eventually disappear (into the Library of Congress archives), and I also like to expand on the 140-character comparisons.

Once again, hit the jump for the fun with numbers.

5/7

Cal Ripken Jr.: 3185 hits, 8893 outs. Tony Gwynn: 3141 hits, 6662 outs.

This is just to show that not all 3,000 hit club members are made alike. Career-wise, Ripken is probably the worst hitter out of all 27 members. Meanwhile, Tony Gwynn was able to slap the ball around wherever he wanted, even at 350 pounds.

5/8

Jamie Moyer: 2362 K, 1122 BB. Tom Glavine: 2607 K, 1500 BB.

I don’t like Tom Glavine. I believe he’s only going to make the Hall of Fame because he was so durable and played for the winningest team of the 90s (for some reason, there’s no easy google search to confirm this, and I’m not doing the math to compare them to the Yankees). He also got half a foot off the plate until Questek came around. What better way to belittle him than to compare him to Jamie Moyer? This has nothing to do with that final game of 2007, nope.

5/9

Perfect games: 19. Unassisted triple plays: 15. Four-HR games: 15.

Sure, the unassisted triple play is all luck — as opposed to the other two — but they are all cool numbers anyway.

5/10

Livan Hernandez: 1.04 ERA. Livan Hernandez: 5.18 xFIP.

What this means is that this Cuban defector is due to fall back to earth. Hard.

5/11

David Wright, Career: .308/.389/.519. David Wright, 2010: .293/.417/.552.

His 2010 numbers have fallen a bit in the past few days, and now he’s even more in line with his career stats, at least when it comes to OBP and SLG. Sure, he’s striking out an obscene amount — which is frustrating as hell — but he’s still by far the best hitter on the Mets. And also one of the better hitters in baseball.

5/12

Brady Anderson: 210 HR, 315 SB. Derek Jeter: 228 HR, 308 SB. @PixelGorilla

Proof that I give my fans what they want. PixelGorilla asked for a Brady Anderson comparison, so I gave him one.

5/13

Tom Glavine: 4413.1 IP, 118 ERA+, 1.74 K/BB. Bert Blyleven: 4970 IP, 118 ERA+, 2.80 K/BB.

More Glavine hate, sorta. Or more just pointing out that if Glavine is a no-doubt Hall of Famer, than so should be Blyleven.

5/14

2010 Nationals, May 14th: 20-15. 2009 Nationals, June 19th: 20-46.

This is just mind-blowing. I can’t believe the Washington Nationals are 20-15. And they haven’t even called up Strasburg yet. Fuck me.

I really started off with basic stats that everyone knows, but I eventually relented and started using the most hardcore baseball stats out there, because I figure the people who actually pay attention to these tweets probably know them. And if not, let me know.

Hit the jump if you want to see a fairly annoyingly formatted post. Sorry.

4/28

Prince Fielder: 14 SB, 9 CS. Robinson Cano: 19 SB, 23 CS.

This is obviously just to point out the fact that Cano should not even be trying to steal bases. He fucking sucks at it. According to who you talk to, the break even point for stolen base percentage ranges from 67% to 75%. Either way, Cano isn’t close.

4/29

Jered Weaver: 34 K, 6 BB. Felix Hernandez: 31 K, 12 BB. @waxinthaksin #alwest

This was just for the benefit of the Angels fan @’d in the tweet. This won’t last.

4/30

Jim Rice: 382 HR, .854 OPS. Jim Edmonds: 383 HR, .905 OPS.

And I didn’t even bother to bring in fielding statistics. Although I guess fear statistics would cancel them out.

5/1

Roy Halladay: 5 W. Roy Halladay: 4 BB. (Thanks for the idea, @310tojoba)

Unfortunately, Halladay now has more walks than wins. I don’t think the dream is dead yet. And by that, I mean him magically turning to shit.

5/2

David Eckstein: 35 HR, 95 wRC+. Vinny Castilla: 320 HR, 93 wRC+. (LOL 90s Coors Field)

This is just fucking hilarious. Vinny Castilla had five straight 30-HR seasons, with three straight 40-HR seasons in the middle of those. Yet the massive park factors and mediocre OBP makes wRC+ calculate David Eckstein as the more valuable hitter. I’m sure someone would look at this as an example of why sabermetrics are retarded.

5/3

Don Mattingly: 128 wRC+, 15 TZ. Keith Hernandez: 131 wRC+, 113 TZ.

Basically this post condensed to a tweet.

5/4

Pete Rose: 198 SB, 149 CS. Jackie Robinson: 197 SB, 30 CS.

Rose might have hustled, but it didn’t make him a good base-stealer. Still better than Cano — a guy who does not live up the player he was named after. Look at that efficiency!

5/5 (ok, 5/6 TECHNICALLY)

Mike Cameron: 1806 K, 265 HR. Ken Griffey Jr.: 1775 K, 630 HR.

I just found this really amusing. Cameron has exactly HALF the home runs of Griffey, yet a few dozen more Ks. And they are both center fielders. Seemed like a fun comparison to make.

5/6

Chase Utley: 2.3 fWAR, $15.3 mil. Ryan Howard: 0.1 fWAR, $19 mil. (fWAR excl. today’s game)

fWAR = Fangraphs WAR. I got the notation from Beyond the Box Score. And it says Utley has been absolutely insane so far this year. We all already knew he was better than Howard, but one month samples make it more fun to point it out.

I love Johan. He’s been one of the few guys on this Mets team that I’ve never been truly disappointed in. And I’ll never forget that gem he threw in the second-to-last game of the 2008 season.

But: he’s signed to a massive contact through at least 2013, with a club option for 2014. Roy Halladay will be making less over the same period and at this point looks like he will easily be the superior pitcher over the next few years. I can’t get on Omar for the contract, but I really hope Johan can stop his decline and at least maintain his performance of the past two years. I’m just not sure that’s going to happen. Pedro Martinez was all but done being Pedro at 33. I see Johan as basically Pedro-lite, and he turns 33 in two years.

If you want to see pretty graphs detailing Johan’s decline since his epic 2004 season, hit the jump.

Striking out guys at a progressively lower rate is never good.

Walking guys at a progressively HIGHER rate is never good, either.

Combine the two and you get:

Well, that’s just bad. Shit.

Of course, when you strike out less guys, that means more guys are making contact. Hopefully those guys making contact aren’t making good contact.

I guess not. Now, pitchers don’t have much control over their BABIP, but they do have a bit. Johan is fooling batters just a tiny bit less each year.

So more guys are making contact, and that contact is apparently getting better (or the Mets’ fielding is just worse than the Twins’, which is very possible). That equals:

So far this 2010 — no thanks to that debacle on Sunday — batters are hitting him like he’s an average pitcher. Fuck.

So guys are hitting for a higher average off of him and also walking more. That can only mean one thing:

More and more baserunners.

Now, I don’t get why Fangraphs doesn’t have graphs for FIP and xFIP, and I could easily make graphs for them myself, but instead I’m just going to post his SIERA for the past 7 seasons in big bold digits. (SIERA being a superior metric for measuring future performance than xFIP.)

2004 – 2.38
2005 – 2.73
2006 – 2.74
2007 – 2.76
2008 – 3.61
2009 – 3.55
2010 – 3.80

He hasn’t been the same pitcher since he came to the Mets (and you can argue it started his last year with the Twins), but he’s done a damn good job of hiding that fact most of the time. It’s just the times where he gives up a grand slam to Felix Hernandez, or walks 71-year-old Jamie Moyer, that one can plainly see he’s past his peak.

All graphs courtesy of Fangraphs.

NSFW: I Admit It, The iPad Is A Kindle Killer. I Just Wish It Weren’t Going To Kill Reading Too – Makes a pretty damn convincing argument for why all but the biggest bibliophiles who also happen to be technophiles will get a Kindle instead of an iPad. Because really, who reads anymore?

The magic is dead – In which an aspiring writer e-buddy laments the sad state of affairs when it comes to practical effects. Filmmakers used to create ingenious ways to pull off shots and effects, while nowadays computers do all the work. I can’t say I care too much, except when the CGI sucks e.g. the Burly Brawl in The Matrix Reloaded. Sigh. There’s a reason why Jaws (mentioned in the blog post) still holds up today.

L.A. Candy by Lauren Conrad – A review of a book I’ll never read. Actually, I never would have heard of the author or the book if it weren’t for the damn internet. Apparently this “Lauren Conrad” was on “The Hills.” As much as I’m sure the book sucks — an opinion backed up by this review from another e-buddy — I’m impressed that she’s able to form complete sentences. Putting thousands of them together in a novel is just mind-blowing.

5 Ways Facebook Changed Dating (For The Worse) – Let me add 6) A girl is able to blow you off by saying “Facebook me”

How good was the Springfield Power Plant Team? – Remember that awesome Simpsons episode where Mr. Burns collects a bunch of Major League players for the softball game against Shelbyville plant and all the players except Darryl Strawberry fall victim to absurd incidents and circumstances? Well, I’m about to ruin it for most of you by linking to this article which grades the team by WAR. I think we all wondered why the hell Mike Scoscia was on the team, though, even as a kid. At least I did.

Regular Season Baseball Signals The “Return” of LOLMLB – So are these captions officially played out yet?

+/-, RZR, and New Fielding Stats – You didn’t think you’d get through this entire post without getting linked to a pure sabermetric article, did you? SO MANY FIELDING METRICS IN ONE PLACE WHAT AN EARLY BIRTHDAY PRESENT. RZR kinda sucks, though. It’s like that $10 gift card to some store you never shop at.

I’ll try not to go into the usual stuff that has been covered on a ton of other blogs. I wish I saved the links, because I’m not going to hunt for them.

My initial gut ballot was: Bert Blyleven, Roberto Alomar, Mark McGwire, Tim Raines. Since then, I’ve reconsidered and would probably add Edgar Martinez, Barry Larkin, and Alan Trammell. So there, seven guys I’d put in before Dawson.

But I’m going to steal and add to an idea presented in this post on The Hardball Times.

Wins Above Excellence:

Time to introduce a new junk stat. For this measure, I’m looking at how many wins a player has above three in a season, though his season total can never be below zero. This gives a player credit for great seasons, and ignores anything where a player is average or below, it neither adds nor hurts a player’s case for greatness. A great player should not be penalized if he hangs around past his peak contributing a only little bit to his teams.

I think three wins is a bit low of a barrier for “excellence.” Two wins is average, three wins is good, four wins is great, five wins is excellence.

Going by Fangraphs’ WAR calculations (which I won’t be using for the historical WAR calculations), last year there were this many players — not including pitchers — that hit each of these WAR thresholds:

3 WAR or above: 75
4 WAR or above: 47
5 WAR or above: 24

I’d definitely define five wins above replacement as excellence. The guys right at the threshold are names like Teixeira, Ichiro, and Sandoval.

But, not many guys collect many wins above 5 WAR. Let’s look at the numbers for the eight Hall of Fame candidates (including the one future inductee):

Oh wait, make that nine. You may have noticed the guy that doesn’t belong. At all. That would be Jack Morris. This is the voting results from this year with Lee Smith taken out, because there’s no point in even adding him to the chart. As you can see, Dawson does not deserve to be on top — and Bert Blyleven should be a no-fucking-brainer. I think  another interesting part of the table is Raines being the second-worst when you use 5 WAR as the barrier (and third-worst with the other two). That ties in well with why he’s been slow in getting support for induction. Trammell was just unfortunate to play shortstop just before the recent influx of heavy-hitting shortstops. His hitting numbers don’t look impressive, and he wasn’t Ozzie Smith in the field. Hall of Fame voters don’t apply position adjustments, apparently.

As always, I must thank Sean Smith at BaseballProjection.com for his historical WAR database. I should probably donate at this point.

I figured that before I decided on this team that I’d go to BaseballProjection.com to take a look at their historical WAR data for the decade. Fangraphs only goes back to 2002 with their WAR calculations. I had good ideas already for each position, and for the most part the WAR totals agreed with my preconceptions, but there were a few surprises. I’m going to state right here that I might as well entitle this post “BaseballProjection.com’s All-Decade Team” because I’m basically just going by their WAR calcs. To make sure to highlight that fact, I’ll put each player’s WAR next to his name.

C – Jorge Posada (39.9 WAR)

He’s never been close to as good as Joe Mauer is right now, which is why I feel so dirty putting him above Mauer. But he’s been around the entire decade and I’d say he hit pretty damn well for a catcher. 208 HR and 819 RBI are solid counting stats.

Backup – Joe Mauer (33.1 WAR)

I saved my words for the guy with the potential to be the greatest catcher ever. Three batting titles in five full years. An explosion of power this year that made him as feared as Mike Piazza. I’m not sure if all the power will stay, but he’s actually a good catcher, too! He made one of the more heads-up and athletic plays you’ll ever see a catcher make when he stopped himself from throwing to first on a bunt attempt, only to turn back around, run down, dive, and tag Brett Gardner — one of the fastest dudes in the league — before he could scurry and slide home. Mike Piazza would’ve made the throw to first and the guy would have been safe. The Twins HAVE to sign him or else I’ll just be totally disillusioned with baseball free agency — like that hasn’t happened before. But really, the guy is a once-in-a-generation player. If I were a Twins fan and he ended up somewhere else, I’d burn all my Twins memorabilia.

1B – Albert Pujols (76.6 WAR)

The most valuable player of the decade, and he got started a year late. What can be said about the guy that hasn’t been said already? When your WORST batting line of the decade is .314/.394/.561, I think you can say you’ve had a decent nine years. His average Triple Crown numbers were .334 BA, 41 HR, and 124 RBI. Disgusting. He would have the Decade Triple Crown if it were not for A-Rod. Now I’m curious to see if anyone has ever accomplished that.

I found this page that said Rogers Hornsby is the only player to do it. But if Hornsby counts, then Pujols does — it’s an AL/NL thing.

Backup – Todd Helton (53.1 WAR)

Sure, his home park for the entire decade was Coors Field, but Helton was still an absolutely fantastic hitter for most of it, and also a great fielder. An OPS over 1.000 is impressive wherever you play.

2B – Jeff Kent (36.2 WAR)

Another player whose spot on the list is due primarily to being around the entire decade, barely beating out a superior player who arrived in the middle of the 00s. But I shouldn’t take too much away from Kent; he mashed to a OPS+ of 130 while hitting 216 HR and racking up 850 RBI. Not a bad decade for a second baseman. And he was serviceable in the field, unlike say, Dan Uggla.

Backup – Chase Utley (34.6 WAR)

Well, that just doesn’t sound right. Utley has been a top-5 player — and that’s conservative — for the past five years. That he racked up that much value in half a decade should tell you something. He hits, he fields, and he runs. Over the past five seasons, he’s averaged 39 2B, 29 HR, 101 RBI, 111 R, and 15 SB (with only 2 CS). I still can’t get over his perfect 23-23 in steal attempts last year. Oh, and he should probably have a few Gold Gloves by now, at least.

SS – Alex Rodriguez (72.9 WAR)

Yeah, I went there. A-Rod might have been the best shortstop of all-time if it weren’t for Derek Jeter. A-Rod was the better fielding shortstop when he came to the Yankees, but unfortunately, captain status and World Series rings outweigh actual ability. Jeter’s Total Zone rating for the years 2000-2003 (the four before A-Rod): -19, -15, -15, -13. I don’t even need to post A-Rod’s numbers because there’s no way they could be worse than that. In terms of hitting, he was pretty good. He led the decade in HR, RBI and R at 435, 1243, and 1190, respectively. Not a bad 10 years.

Backup – Derek Jeter (46.2 WAR)

Jeter is relegated to backup, but he had a damn fine decade. He racked up close to 2000 hits, scored over 1000 runs, stole over 200 bases, hit .317, and got two more World Series rings. It’s just a shame he has no range. The man is a lock for the Hall of Fame regardless, and will likely go down as the third-best shortstop ever (behind Honus Wagner and Cal Ripken Jr.).

3B – Chipper Jones (50.0 WAR)

Chipper just plain hit this decade. A .311/.413/.547 line that works out to a OPS+ of 147. He’s had some injury problems, but he still to both score and drive in over 900 runs, and hit 273 HR, tormenting Mets fans while he was at it. He’s a Hall of Famer.

Backup – Scott Rolen (47.1 WAR)

While Chipper hit, Rolen fielded. Perhaps not quite as masterful a fielder as Brooks Robinson, but certainly a better hitter, Rolen quietly put together a very valuable decade, even if his hitting has slipped a bit in recent years. He still managed a 125 OPS+ over the last ten years.

LF – Barry Bonds (64.4 WAR)

Bonds for the first half of this decade was in God Mode. He wasn’t content with being the best player in baseball in the 90s, he almost did it again in the 00s. Well, he managed it for the first half, at least. From 2001-2004, he put together four straight years with over 10 WAR, three of them over 12. That’s just not fair. His OPS+ for the decade? 221. He was 121% better than the average MLB hitter. Holy fuck.

Backup – Bobby Abreu (44.7 WAR)

This one choice is probably the only time I have an issue with the WAR calculations. I don’t care how atrocious he is in the field, I would’ve picked Manny. But I can’t deviate from the WAR gospel now! Abreu’s extra 1000 or so PAs are what put him over Manny, it seems. But he did average 30 SB a season, get on base at a 40% clip, and hit over 400 doubles. It’s really killing me not to put Manny over him, though. I can’t think of a team that would have taken Abreu over Manny at any point this decade, except maybe during that steroid suspension. Damn you, BaseballProjection.com!

CF – Carlos Beltran (50.1 WAR)

You’ve heard it plenty of times already — the most under-appreciated player in baseball. His contract says otherwise. I do think this is one spot where Total Zone disagrees with UZR a bit, though. Due to this, Beltran gets more of a boost in the WAR calculation in comparison to on Fangraphs. But either way, everyone can agree that Beltran is at the very least a solid center fielder. When you throw in the 121 OPS+ and the 295 steals with only 30 caught stealings, you have a pretty awesome all-around player.

Backup – Jim Edmonds (46.3 WAR)

Might be even more under-appreciated than Beltran. Everyone knows Edmonds was an absolutely ridiculous center fielder, and Total Zone backs it up — UZR doesn’t though. Maybe this discrepancy is just endemic to center fielders not named Andruw Jones, who knows. But Edmonds wasn’t all glove, he was a great hitter too. Even though he had to deal with injuries, he managed to hit 261 HR and both score and drive in over 700 runs due to his 140 OPS+.

RF – Ichiro Suzuki (50.7)

Ah, the player who does everything but hit for power. Over 2000 hits in the decade, over only 9 seasons. Almost 1000 runs, even though the Mariners weren’t exactly a great hitting team this decade. Stole 341 bases while getting caught 79 times. And he patrolled right field better than anyone since Clemente.

Backup – Vladimir Guerrero (45.2 WAR)

Certainly a better hitter than Ichiro, with an even stronger arm, but the lack of speed hurt him in both the outfield and the basepaths in comparison to Ichiro. He stole half the bases while getting caught almost the same amount, and had nowhere the amount of range of the speedy Japanese wonder. But he could sure hit: 315 HR with a .315 average, and a good percentage of those hits were on balls out of the strike zone.

SP – Roy Halladay (44.5 WAR)

You shouldn’t need WAR calculations to tell you that Halladay was one of the very best pitchers of the decade, but somehow MLB Network put him sixth on their list, behind Andy Pettitte, because the latter won the most games in the decade. Wow. Maybe Halladay should’ve struck out more guys instead of throwing all those pointless complete games — he had 47, with 14 of them being shutouts. Both handily led the decade. He threw 1883.1 innings with an ERA+ of 133. His K/BB ratio was 3.74. He also managed to go 139-69 while playing for the Blue Jays in a division with both the Yankees and Red Sox. I’m gonna get crazy and say that if Halladay played for the Yankees and Pettitte played for the Blue Jays, their win-loss records might have been a bit different.

SP – Randy Johnson (42.7 WAR)

Just an absolute beast at the beginning of the 00s. Three straight Cy Young awards, 64 wins, 1053 K, 188 ERA+ to kick off the decade (this is ignoring his equally insane 1999). And then after an injury-plagued 2003, he came back a monster again in 2004. But after that, the decade is pretty much a wash. That’s what happens when a 6’10″ dude with back problems turns 40. He wasn’t awful, but he wasn’t good either. But overall, I’d say he had an OK decade, what with 143 wins and 2182 strikeouts.

SP – Johan Santana (42.1 WAR)

Pedro-lite. He won two Cy Youngs, should’ve won three, and arguably could’ve won four. He got a bit of a late start, as he was used as a reliever when he came up, but he quickly got accustomed to the starting role, it seems. Each year from 2004-06, he led the AL in Ks, ERA+ and WHIP. He had a 143 ERA+, a 3.66 K/BB ratio, and a 1.113 WHIP for the decade. I don’t want to imagine the Mets without him.

SP – Roy Oswalt (39.5 WAR)

I feel somewhat forgotten down in Houston, Oswalt threw 1803.1 innings, and racked up 137 wins while pitching to a 137 ERA+. He was definitely one of the more consistently great starters in the league until this year. Maybe I’m guilty of forgetting him, as I have nothing else to say.

SP – Mark Buerhle (39.4 WAR)

Buerhle might be the most consistent of all. He makes this list due to being a total workhorse. He threw 2061 innings in the decade, and 2000 only contained 51.1 of those. He has pitched at least 200 innings in every single season since then. Neither his 122 ERA+ not 135-97 record is spectacular, but hey, he threw a perfect game and also broke the record for most consecutive putouts. Would back-to-back perfect games have helped his eventual Hall of Fame case? It might not matter, as he looks like he could get to 300 wins, Tom Glavine-style.

SP – Pedro Martinez (39.2 WAR)

From 1997-2003, Pedro was the best pitcher in baseball history. During the part that came in this decade (2000-03), he went 59-17 with a 224 ERA+, .899 WHIP, and 6.19 K/BB. That’s obscene. He only managed 112 wins over the entire decade, only throwing 1468.0 innings, but his ERA+ of 154 leads the decade among starters. When he pitched, he pitched awesome. Except for three out of four years with the Mets. FML.

SP – Javier Vazquez (39.0 WAR)

The most mystifying pitcher of the decade. His WAR is so high despite his underwhelming 128-116 record. How could that be? He sucks in high leverage situations, for whatever reason. He also had shitty fielding behind him and didn’t play for the best of teams for many years. But, like Buerhle, he’s here partially because of his durability. he threw at least 198 innings every season, totaling 2163 IP for the decade. His 113 ERA+ isn’t great either, but he did have a 3.79 K/BB due to striking out 2001 batters. I still don’t know what to think of him, really.

SP – Curt Schilling (37.7 WAR)

He might have missed the last two years of the decade, but he was great enough that he still accumulated a shitton of value. Perhaps his K/BB ratio of 6.01 over the entire decade had something to do with it. There’s never been a power pitcher with control like that. He had three 20-win seasons, threw 26 complete games, and had a 133 ERA+. You might have also heard about his postseason achievements.

RP – Mariano Rivera (33.6 WAR)

The only reliever here. Why? Because he’s the only one that deserves it. There is Mariano Rivera, and then there is every other closer. He led the decade with 397 saves while posting a 214 ERA+ and .960 WHIP. He’s kinda not human. You could fill the rest of the bullpen with the extra starting pitchers.

That’s it. 25 players. One decade. I didn’t even do any thinking. Just spreadsheet summation. I really should go back and switch Manny in for Abreu. Fucking Bobby Abreu? Really?

- Live win probability and win probability graphs.
- Live box score and play-by-play data.
- Basic/Advanced/Value stats for any baseball player.
- Minor league stats.
- Historical game data going back to 1974.

Fuck me in the ass, holy shit. Just look at this beautiful stuff:

I just came in my nerd pants. How much is an iPhone again? I need 24/7 access to baseball stats in such a pretty and informative package!

Ok, let’s start with the career Rtot/yr (Total Fielding Runs Above Avg per 1250 innings) numbers for guys that everyone knows was a totally awesome fielder.

Ozzie Smith +13.1

Brooks Robinson +14.0

Willie Mays +9.3

Keith Hernandez +8.3

Roberto Clemente +12.0

Ivan Rodriguez +9.7

Roberto Alomar -1.8

Wait, what? Roberto Alomar was BELOW AVERAGE? But he has ten Gold Gloves! This stat has to be wrong! No, I don’t think so. I think the perception of Alomar is similar to that of Derek Jeter, only Alomar was basically an average fielder, instead of absolutely terrible. So take an average sure-handed fielder who really flares it up as much as Alomar, what with the jumping and diving in the outfield for balls almost behind first base, add it to the fact that he was also a good hitter, and you have yourself a ten Gold Glove winner. Even Jeter has three Gold Gloves, and every fielding metric created puts him below average, with most putting him at the bottom of the heap. By the way, Jeter’s career Rtot/yr is -8.2. Check it out yourself.

I don’t believe the following blew my mind as much as the Alomar revelation, since he has always been known as an incredible center fielder, but I really was not prepared for Andruw Jones’s numbers. I probably should have (or have, and don’t remember) looked at his numbers on Fangraphs before, but holy living fuck. I hate him with a passion, not only because he was a Brave, but because of his fucking smirk — yet I cannot deny that he is, or was, quite possibly the greatest center fielder of all-time. Yes, maybe even better than Willie Mays. The career numbers: +18.4 on BR, +22.4 on Fangraphs. That’s just inhuman. And that number for Fangraphs does not account for his first few years, where he was even younger, faster, and better. Ken Griffey Jr. totally fucking pales in comparison (-0.6 career, hurt by the last decade).

If you want to maybe delve further into fielding stats, I’d recommend checking out The Fielding Bible, which includes some Plus/Minus leaderboards from the past few years, where you can see more evidence of Jeter suckage and Jones domination. I very highly recommend reading the “Jeter vs. Everett” excerpt, which can be summed up in this paragraph:

In one way of looking at it, it makes intuitive sense that Derek Jeter could be the worst defensive shortstop of all time. Unusual weaknesses in sports can only survive in the presence of unusual strengths. I don’t know who was the worst free throw shooter in NBA history—but I’ll guarantee you, whoever he was, he could play. If he couldn’t play, he wouldn’t have been given a chance to miss all those free throws. If a player is simply bad, he is quickly driven out of the game. To be the worst defensive shortstop ever, the player would have to have unusual strengths in other areas, which Jeter certainly has. It would help if he were surrounded by teammates who also have unusual strengths, which Jeter certainly is. The worst defensive shortstop in baseball history would have to be someone like Jeter who is unusually good at other aspects of the game.

Yankee fans — feel free to flame me in the comments.

Everyone knows David Wright has struck out a lot this year (70 times). Everyone pays attention to his now .356 batting average. A good amount are also aware of his .444 on-base percentage, now that the stat is displayed on most broadcasts and scoreboards. And of course, we all know his home run total is shockingly low (4). Combine all these and you have a high BABIP. What is BABIP, you ask? It is Batting Average on Balls in Play:

where H is hits, HR is home runs, AB is at bats, K is strikeouts, and SF is sacrifice flies. (Thanks, Wikipedia!)

After tonight’s 4-4 performance — of which no hits were a HR — Wright’s BABIP has risen to .471. For the past week, there have been numerous articles about how Wright will eventually come back down to earth. Even this very morning, Fangraphs made sure to join in on the fun, putting forward the data that shows that for whatever reason, Wright’s groundballs are finding holes. Well, that’s what happened once again tonight. Maybe Wright will be the first man to defy the BABIP gods for an entire season. Extremely rare is the season where a player has a BABIP over .400, but Wright is currently destroying that barrier, with no sign of letting up. He has shown no sign of hitting any home runs anytime soon either, but I’ll let that slide.

The most interesting part about this phenomenon has to be the continuing penetration of sabermetrical analysis into the mainstream. Never was it more evident than when I heard Gary Cohen mention it on the SNY broadcast a few days back. People knew Wright was having a strange season — who strikes out more while hitting less home runs? — but BABIP provides an easy way to quantify it. It is almost “luckiness” in number form. I say almost because there might be something more to it than that, and no one has quite figured it out. Maybe it’s just INTANGIBLE, which would explain why Derek Jeter’s career BABIP is .360. That’s how you become the Yankee captain. See, it’s not LUCK, it’s CLUTCH. Ichiro is right behind him at .357, but you could have guessed that. The guy hits line drives off of bounced balls.

I can’t say that Wright will keep this up for the entire season, because he won’t, but I don’t think he’s going to strike out at this rate for the entire season either. Maybe he will be able to keep his average this high. Maybe he’ll end up with the line of a speedy second baseman: .350, 10 HR, 45 SB (let’s ignore the RBIs). And maybe another stat will be ingrained into the collective psyche of casual baseball fandom.