A quick note that I discovered earlier today:
As part of their Book Search service, Google is now offering full text searching of certain magazines. They haven't released a full listing of what magazines are available, but the examples they cite include Popular Science and Ebony. Poking around it myself, I've discovered that the full back-catalog of Baseball Digest Magazine is available, meaning that every page of every issue can be viewed (and searched) online for free. That's a pretty sweet deal, especially considering their annual preview issues (check out the 1948 or 1962 or 1989 issues).
Couple this with the complete text search abilities of the Sports Illustrated Vault, and we can get a taste for just how cool this digital age really is. It effectively grows my preview guide collection by decades.
I plan on adding a page to the blog focusing on these external sources, for later reference. I figure it could be useful.
And now something cool just for reading...
Wednesday, December 10, 2008
Prospect Preview: 1982
As I've said before, one of my favorite reasons for owning and reading these preview guides is reading through the old previews and seeing what contemporary writers had to say about players at the time. Not only can this be entertaining (for a number of reasons), but it can also be quite insightful: it can show how certain players broke through into the national consciousness; it can remind you of the big stars of the day who have since been mostly forgotten; and it can tell you about all the unfulfilled expectations of the up-and-coming players.
The best example of this, where all three of these aspects intersect, is the "prospects" section. When a magazine like these are written, it's impossible to know one prospect's future from another - their possible fortune is just as likely as their possible folly. But when we look at them with the benefit of hindsight, we know who made good on that potential and who did not. So when we go looking through these magazines for players who we know are Hall of Famers, it makes the statements sometimes rather underwhelming (and rather overwhelming for those we know are flame-outs).
Tonight, I've decided to share some of these "prospects views" from the 1982 Street and Smith's baseball preview guide. Looking back, it was actually a very strong year for rookies. In Rookie of the Year voting, there were three future Hall of Famers, and, among the other vote-getters, there were seven All-Stars, one MVP winner, and one Cy Young winner. That's a pretty solid class.
Here are some excerpts from the magazine:
Looking through those comments from almost 27 years ago about players who eventually had long, productive, Hall of Fame careers (well, except Chili...), it's hard to see anything that guaranteed greatness. In fact, if you pick up any preview guide today, current or past, you'll probably find countless other entries making similar statements. Which I find fascinating... if I look at my 2008 preview guides, will it be possible for me to find the Wade Boggs's and Tony Gwynn's in its pages? After all, there's a good chance that there are 2 or 3 future Hall of Famers waiting to be found...
The best example of this, where all three of these aspects intersect, is the "prospects" section. When a magazine like these are written, it's impossible to know one prospect's future from another - their possible fortune is just as likely as their possible folly. But when we look at them with the benefit of hindsight, we know who made good on that potential and who did not. So when we go looking through these magazines for players who we know are Hall of Famers, it makes the statements sometimes rather underwhelming (and rather overwhelming for those we know are flame-outs).
Tonight, I've decided to share some of these "prospects views" from the 1982 Street and Smith's baseball preview guide. Looking back, it was actually a very strong year for rookies. In Rookie of the Year voting, there were three future Hall of Famers, and, among the other vote-getters, there were seven All-Stars, one MVP winner, and one Cy Young winner. That's a pretty solid class.
Here are some excerpts from the magazine:
Tony Gwynn: Outfielder Tony Gwynn certainly needs more seasoning after blistering Double-A pitching over just 23 games. But his .462 average and 19 ribbies were impressive.Now, this is cheating a little, as Gwynn didn't really make it to the bigs until 1983 (though he did play 54 games, with 190 at-bats, in 1982). Still, you can clearly see that Gwynn's biggest strength was noticeable right from the beginning.
Cal Ripken, Jr.: Third base in Baltimore has become crowded with Ripkens this season. Cal has been the Birds' third-base coach for years. And now, son Cal Jr. has dislodged Doug DeCinces as the O's starting third sacker. When a deal found DeCinces going elsewhere, to the West Coast, from where he hails, the younger Ripken was planted at the hot corner. Ripken can also play shortstop, but not nearly as well as third. His hitting is not in doubt. Last season, the International League was loaded with outstanding prospects at third, not the least of which was Ripken (.288, 25, 75 at Rochester). Impressive as a .276 hitter in Puerto Rico the year before, his winter ball improvement was tremendous this time around. Playing third for Caguas, Ripken was the league's runaway RBI leader and a possible Triple Crown winner as the season neared its end.It seems that Cal was a pretty highly regarded prospect because that synopsis was pretty spot-on. There wasn't much hemming or hawwing there. I liked the comment on how he doesn't play short "nearly as well as third", and that the O's needed to move DeCinces off of third in order to make room for Cal (he only played 71 of his 160 games that year at third). I wonder how the O's brass felt when they switched him over to shortstop that first time. I suppose it worked out.
Chili Davis: Giants' manager Frank Robinson knows a little about judging offensive prospects. He was one himself once, before going on to become the National League Rookie of the Year, MVP in both leagues (nobody else has done that) and...elected to the Hall of Fame. So when he suggests that center fielder Chili Davis's talent is similar to Montreal's Andre Dawson, you listen. Robinson said of Davis, who batted .350, had 19 homers, 40 stolen bases in 88 AAA games for Phoenix, "He simply can do everything - run, throw, steal 40-50 bases, hit 30-35 homers with power from either side." What more can a manager say about his top prospect? "He's a great kid," added Robinson.Davis certainly went on to have a fine career, playing 18+ years with three all-star appearances, 2,380 hits, 350 home runs, and a .274/.360/.451 line. But there's some very high praise there - being compared to Andre Dawson in 1982 may be like being compared to Carlos Beltran or Vlad Guerrero today - that he didn't quite live up to (I don't see Rob Neyer debating Davis's Hall of Fame merits after all) and it comes from a pretty respected source. In that light, this quote might be one of the more overly optimistic, but, all in all, I don't think fans of the '80s Giants and Angels were complaining too much.
Wade Boggs: What is it about Wade Boggs? All he does is slap out all those base hits, yet he continues to wear a Triple-A label. He's been a first baseman, outfielder, and third baseman. He was nipped by less than a point for the IL batting crown two years ago, but in 1981 won it by .0006 points, hitting .353 for Pawtucket, where he drove in 60 bases. Surely he ought to find a niche with some club, even as a pinch-hitter, although he isn't laden with home run power.That actually may be my favorite write-up. I like how it nails Boggs the MLBer down perfectly, but still leaves plenty of room for things to go differently (a pinch-hitter? seriously?). I imagine it's hard to predict greatness when all you see is base hits; for some reason, base hits don't impress upon you the mantle of "greatness" the same way a towering home run ball might. It probably should, though, as we've seen some great pure hitters in recent times.
Looking through those comments from almost 27 years ago about players who eventually had long, productive, Hall of Fame careers (well, except Chili...), it's hard to see anything that guaranteed greatness. In fact, if you pick up any preview guide today, current or past, you'll probably find countless other entries making similar statements. Which I find fascinating... if I look at my 2008 preview guides, will it be possible for me to find the Wade Boggs's and Tony Gwynn's in its pages? After all, there's a good chance that there are 2 or 3 future Hall of Famers waiting to be found...
Monday, December 8, 2008
Through the Years: Greg Maddux
It's a sad day for Major League Baseball, as Greg Maddux officially announces his retirement (sometime) today. With the "pre-official" announcement he made on Friday, I've been reading tributes and reminisces about Mad Dog all weekend, and it's pretty clear that he made quite an impact on baseball fans across the country. Some remember his brilliant commercials; some have tried to figure out just how this seemingly unremarkable man turned into one of the greatest pitchers of all time; and at least two have taken the time to share their "quintessential" Maddux game. He is obviously a pitcher that people have been fascinated by for these last 23 years.
And I'm no different. And though I'm just as fascinated with Maddux and the way he hypnotized batters and umpires alike, I'm not sure I can add anything that hasn't been said many times before. (I was lucky enough to see him pitch twice, though not until late in his career. He didn't pitch particularly well either time, but I still feel grateful to have seen him.) Instead, I thought it might be interesting to see what people were saying about him from year-to-year as he entered his prime, to see if they were able to realize what was materializing in front of them.
I went through my collection of annual preview guides and found what they had to say about Maddux. Unfortunately, his rise to stardom coincides with the thinnest era of my collection. For those years that I don't yet have a preview guide, I visited the Sports Illustrated vault and looked through their annual baseball issue.
After reading through issues spanning the first 10 years of his career, ending after his fourth consecutive Cy Young award in 1995, I'd say that Maddux's career was much like his game: so much better than a man of his frame should be capable of that no one could really comprehend that it was happening until he had already blown through the line-up multiple times.
Drafted in 1984, Maddux doesn't make an appearance in the preview guides until 1987, his official rookie year. Though he ended up starting 27 games that year, it was unclear if he (or his draft-class mate, the ageless Jamie Moyer) would make it to the big club that year:
Maddux wasn't entirely happy with the way the season ended, though. In an "Opportunities Lost" article in the 1995 Sporting News yearbook, Maddux says this:
At this point, there was no denying the greatness of Greg Maddux, and the Sporting News had no choice but to focus on Maddux, at least a little. They predicted yet another Cy Young for him, saying this:
And I'm no different. And though I'm just as fascinated with Maddux and the way he hypnotized batters and umpires alike, I'm not sure I can add anything that hasn't been said many times before. (I was lucky enough to see him pitch twice, though not until late in his career. He didn't pitch particularly well either time, but I still feel grateful to have seen him.) Instead, I thought it might be interesting to see what people were saying about him from year-to-year as he entered his prime, to see if they were able to realize what was materializing in front of them.
I went through my collection of annual preview guides and found what they had to say about Maddux. Unfortunately, his rise to stardom coincides with the thinnest era of my collection. For those years that I don't yet have a preview guide, I visited the Sports Illustrated vault and looked through their annual baseball issue.
After reading through issues spanning the first 10 years of his career, ending after his fourth consecutive Cy Young award in 1995, I'd say that Maddux's career was much like his game: so much better than a man of his frame should be capable of that no one could really comprehend that it was happening until he had already blown through the line-up multiple times.
Drafted in 1984, Maddux doesn't make an appearance in the preview guides until 1987, his official rookie year. Though he ended up starting 27 games that year, it was unclear if he (or his draft-class mate, the ageless Jamie Moyer) would make it to the big club that year:
[GM Dallas] Green would like to see such youngsters as Moyer and Maddux step into the starting rotation to replace high-priced veterans who have been unproductive since the Cubs' big year in 1984. But Manager Gene Michael said he is not looking to replace Rick Sutcliffe, Dennis Eckersley, Scott Sanderson and Steve Trout.Despite a few good games that year (including his first career shutout and his first 10 strikeout game), 1987 was a pretty forgettable year for Maddux, going 6-14 with a 5.61 ERA. That may explain why there is no mention of him in the 1988 Street & Smith's preview guide. But the year turned out well for him, as he posted a 18-8 record with a 3.18 ERA. It also led to this first mention in SI (at least the first mention I can find using SI's search functionality):
--clip--
Moyer, a 24-year-old lefthander, won seven of 11 decisions despite his 5.05 ERA after being called up from Iowa (American Association) last June. Maddux, who will turn 21 in April, is less likely to join the Cubs right away, but the righthander's combined 14-4 record at Pittsfield (Eastern) and Iowa last season indicate that he'll be ready sometime this year...
FAMILY OF THE WEEKAs Maddux threw very solid years in 1989 and 1990, the up-and-down nature of the Cubs kept the focus of the preview articles off of Maddux and on the team. By the time 1991 rolled around, though, experts were able to recognize the growing talent of Mad Dog. The annual Sporting News baseball yearbook made the bold prediction that Maddux would win the Cy Young that year, calling him "a not-so-friendly pitcher, even in Wrigley Field." They also had this to say in the team preview section, under a large picture of Maddux on the hill:
Greg Maddux became the first Chicago Cub since Milt Pappas in 1971 to pitch complete-game victories in his first two starts of the season. He went 17 2/3 innings before allowing a run. Maddux's brother, Mike, a reliever with the Philadelphia Phillies, had 16 K's in 12 scoreless innings before yielding his first run in his fifth appearance Sunday.
...Returning starters have much to prove from last year, when Manager Don Zimmer had to use 16 starters because of injuries or ineffectiveness. The big three of Maddux, Rick Sutcliffe, and Mike Bielecki fell from a combined 53-30 record and a 3.24 ERA in 1989 to 23-28 and 4.16. Sutcliffe had shoulder surgery in May and didn't pitch until late August, while Bielecki was inconsistent and pitched himself into bullpen duty.The season didn't prove as well for Maddux as TSN suggested it would, but he did end up with a respectable 15-11 record with a 3.35 ERA. He proved them right the next year, however, winning his first Cy Young with a 20-11 record, 2.18 ERA, and 199 strikeouts. Of course, Sports Illustrated, in its usual brevity, only had the briefest of notes on him:
Maddux won 15 games last season despite a horrendous two-month stretch in which he went 0-8 with five no-decisions. In the last three years, he has posted 52 victories.
Beyond these three, Chicago has ace Greg Maddux and a lot of question marks.The Cy Young made his free agency that year very compelling, and led to a feature in SI's baseball issue. Speaking with Maddux's father (a card dealer in Las Vegas), his brother Mike, and Greg himself, the magazine had this to say:
"Quality entertainment," Greg says when [Wayne] Newton's name is invoked. "They call it the entertainment capital of the world, and it is." But the brightest new star in that desert-sky galaxy may be Greg. Consider that he won the Cy Young for the Chicago Cubs, a fourth-place team. In seven of his 11 losses last season (how are those, for Vegas numbers?), the Cubs scored zero runs for him. He has won three consecutive Gold Gloves and 87 games in five years. All of which is why Greg hit the free-agency jackpot on Dec. 9, eight days before Mike was traded from San Diego to New York for reliever Roger Mason and a minor leaguer.Obviously, 1992 was a fantastic year for Maddux, but it was nothing compared to 1993 or 1994. Maddux won his second consecutive Cy Young in 1993, compiling a 20-10 record with a 2.36 ERA and 197 strikeouts. The next year's SI baseball preview had only this to say about him:
Ace: Greg Maddux: No one has won three straight Cy Youngs; he may.And he did, posting one of the most absurd lines in baseball history in that strike-shortened year: 16-6, 32 walks in 202 innings pitched, and a 1.56 ERA. That's an ERA+ of 271.
Maddux wasn't entirely happy with the way the season ended, though. In an "Opportunities Lost" article in the 1995 Sporting News yearbook, Maddux says this:
...'It would have been special to win 20 three seasons in a row, that's for sure,' said Maddux, who tied for the NL lead with 16 victories in 1994. 'That's always a goal of any starting pitcher. When you win 20, that means you're going out there and taking the ball every fifth day and doing your job. And 20 wins just has that special feeling to it in baseball. It would have been nice, but what could I do? Things happened and I have to be content with what I did.'
What he did was win an unprecedented third consecutive Cy Young Award. His most impressive statistic en route to capturing baseball's top pitching prize was his 1.56 ERA, which was the third-best mark in the big leagues since 1919. Despite the disappointing end of the season, Maddux tried to make the most of his extended off-season.The team preview for that 1995 Braves team, which would go on to win their only World Series title, was more than impressed with Maddux and his staff-mates:
'In a lot of ways, the strike has been a blessing in disguise,' he said. 'I don't think (players) have had a hard time finding things to do. Your body has recovered from the season and it feels stronger. It doesn't feel like we ever went on strike.'
What pitching coach wouldn't love this staff? Two starters own the past four NL Cy Young awards, two others are former championship series MVPs, and the fifth starter has a pair of no-hitters under his belt [Kent Mercker - who knew?].But beyond the World Series ring, Maddux accomplished something even more special and rare: winning his fourth consecutive Cy Young, and besting his 1994 season in just about every possible way. His line looked like this: 19-2, 28 GS, 209.2 IP, 23 BB, 0.811 WHIP, 1.63 ERA, 262 ERA+.
Atlanta's top three starters - Greg Maddux, Tom Glavine and Steve Avery - are the winningest trio (97 victories) in baseball the past two seasons. Maddux, the first pitcher in history to win three consecutive Cy Youngs, is the undisputed staff leader. After posting a 1.56 ERA last season - the third-best ERA in the majors since 1919 - he is in a league of his own.
At this point, there was no denying the greatness of Greg Maddux, and the Sporting News had no choice but to focus on Maddux, at least a little. They predicted yet another Cy Young for him, saying this:
In Maddux, the Braves have baseball's best pitcher and a model for others to emulate. There is seemingly nothing he can't do. Besides leading the league with 10 complete games last season, a total surpassed by only four other NL teams, he also led the majors with a 1.63 ERA and set a record with 17 consecutive road wins.They also made him the starting pitcher on their "All Throwback Team", along with such other gritty stalwarts as Will Clark, Chuck Knoblauch, Matt Williams, Steve Finley, and Tony Gwynn. But it was the section called "How Good is Greg Maddux" that proved their true affection:
How Good is Greg MadduxThat's as good a place as any to stop (if you haven't stopped already). It seems clear that Maddux's status as an all-time great was as deceiving as his fastball. From year to year, contemporary writers knew that they were dealing with a star pitcher. But, even as he compiled Cy Young awards over and over, the writers seemed unwilling or unable to notice that he was more than just an "undisputed ace", until the fact was right on top of them and they could do nothing but stare slack jawed and wonder "how in the world did he do it?"
Facts and figures about Mr. Maddux
- His ERA over the past four seasons is 1.98
- With an ERA of 1.57 in 1994 and 1.63 in 1995, Maddux is the first pitcher to have back-to-back ERAs below 1.75 since Walter Johnson in 1918-1919.
- No pitcher had ever had an ERA a full run better than anyone else in the league - before Maddux. Last season, Maddux came within .19 of Hideo Nomo of doing it two years in a row
- He was 13-0 with a 1.12 ERA on the road last season
- He was 17-1 after May 17 last season
- He allowed one run in the middle innings (fourth, fifth, sixth) all season
- He yielded one or no runs in 18 of 28 starts last season
Thursday, December 4, 2008
Career length of players by position played
Well, I'll say it: if you aren't reading Joe Posnanski's blog every day, or buying his book, then you are missing the best sports writing there is. I don't think I'm more excited to see a post show up in my RSS reader than I am when I see a new post from Joe.
Yesterday, Joe posted 4,400 words exploring the make-up of the Hall of Fame, trying to walk us (and himself) through its 75 year history, to see if we can get a handle on what it truly is, and not just what it claims to be. The post is informative, well-written, and thought provoking. I highly recommend it.
As good as the post is, though, the comments are just as good, with people chiming in on what makes the Hall special and why certain people were inducted when others weren't. Reading through the comments, I came across this one from Brent, who is apparently a big fan of second basemen in general. He asks this question:
It seemed like a good theory to me, so I went looking at the data to prove it. For each defensive position on the field, I found everybody who played 1000 games at the given position (it seemed like a decent threshold for a “long-time” player), and then I found the average total games that those players played (for example, Cal Ripken would be on the "SS with 1000+ games" list, but his games at SS and 3B would be added into the average total games, since it shows how long he was able to play the game). I also ran the list for players who played 1200 games at a given position, to try to limit it to longer tenured players. This is the data that I came up with:
………………MIN: 1000 G ……………………MIN: 1200 G
………………#……………Avg Games………………#…………Avg Games
C……………109………1406.83……………………67………1576.25
1B…………125………1709.25……………………92………1823.05
2B…………107………1623.43……………………72………1748
SS…………120………1716.86……………………90………1862
3B…………100………1667.15……………………67………1825.64
OF…………424………1583.91……………………288……1754.27
DH…………8……………2181.38……………………5…………2237.6
Taking a quick look at the counts, it seems that the 1200-G group might be the better dataset. The count of players at the infield positions stay pretty steady between the two datasets, but the outfield count seems a little high in the 1000-G group. We would expect the ratio of outfielders to, say, first basemen to be about 3:1, since there are three outfield spots. In the 1000-G group, however, the ratio is a little more extreme. The ratio in the 1200-G group is much closer to our expectations.
Now to look at the games played by position player: Catchers play the fewest games in their career, by far, with more than a season's worth of fewer games played than the next lowest position in each dataset. Besides catchers, the next lowest position is inconsistent between the two, with outfielders taking that ranking in the 1000-G group and second-basemen taking that ranking in the 1200-G group. But we've already established that the 1200-G group is likely the better dataset, so we'll use that. And it does show us that second-basemen play the fewest career games outside of catchers. Outfielders are very close behind, though.
The count of players at each position is also an interesting datapoint. In both groups, the third-basemen give us the least number of players with the qualifying number of games. Does this tell us something about the demands of the position, or is it more a comment on the types of players who play that position (eg, are they more injury prone, etc)? In both groups, however, the count of second basemen is at the bottom of the list.
With the shortest average career besides catcher, and with the fewest number of players even able to play that long, I think it's pretty clear that there's something about the second base position that keeps players from having long careers. Whether its for the reasons Brent brings up - not able to switch to another position, the physicality of turning the double play - or some other reason, I can't really say, but I believe that there's something there.
One final note about the numbers: in both groups, shortstops have both the longest careers and the (second-) most players making the list. I haven't investigated this further to prove this suspicion, but I suspect that this is because both high-offense and high-defense shortstops can hang around for a long time, either as a bopper at another position (Banks, Cal) or as a defensive specialist whose offense can be overlooked (Ozzie, Vizquel). It's good to be the shortstop.
Yesterday, Joe posted 4,400 words exploring the make-up of the Hall of Fame, trying to walk us (and himself) through its 75 year history, to see if we can get a handle on what it truly is, and not just what it claims to be. The post is informative, well-written, and thought provoking. I highly recommend it.
As good as the post is, though, the comments are just as good, with people chiming in on what makes the Hall special and why certain people were inducted when others weren't. Reading through the comments, I came across this one from Brent, who is apparently a big fan of second basemen in general. He asks this question:
I think 2B is a hard position for the Hall to judge. The only two recent (if the early 80s are recent) are Joe Morgan and Ryne Sandberg (and the dubious inclusion of Rod Carew as a 2Bman). Why is that? Let me propose two possible reasons.The two reasons he proposes are sensible, and boil down to this: second basemen, due to the unique nature of the base on the field and due to the physical toll one takes turning double plays and the like, play much fewer games than players at other positions. So, when the Hall comes along, their counting stats are inferior to those of other positions, leaving them in the cold.
It seemed like a good theory to me, so I went looking at the data to prove it. For each defensive position on the field, I found everybody who played 1000 games at the given position (it seemed like a decent threshold for a “long-time” player), and then I found the average total games that those players played (for example, Cal Ripken would be on the "SS with 1000+ games" list, but his games at SS and 3B would be added into the average total games, since it shows how long he was able to play the game). I also ran the list for players who played 1200 games at a given position, to try to limit it to longer tenured players. This is the data that I came up with:
………………MIN: 1000 G ……………………MIN: 1200 G
………………#……………Avg Games………………#…………Avg Games
C……………109………1406.83……………………67………1576.25
1B…………125………1709.25……………………92………1823.05
2B…………107………1623.43……………………72………1748
SS…………120………1716.86……………………90………1862
3B…………100………1667.15……………………67………1825.64
OF…………424………1583.91……………………288……1754.27
DH…………8……………2181.38……………………5…………2237.6
Taking a quick look at the counts, it seems that the 1200-G group might be the better dataset. The count of players at the infield positions stay pretty steady between the two datasets, but the outfield count seems a little high in the 1000-G group. We would expect the ratio of outfielders to, say, first basemen to be about 3:1, since there are three outfield spots. In the 1000-G group, however, the ratio is a little more extreme. The ratio in the 1200-G group is much closer to our expectations.
Now to look at the games played by position player: Catchers play the fewest games in their career, by far, with more than a season's worth of fewer games played than the next lowest position in each dataset. Besides catchers, the next lowest position is inconsistent between the two, with outfielders taking that ranking in the 1000-G group and second-basemen taking that ranking in the 1200-G group. But we've already established that the 1200-G group is likely the better dataset, so we'll use that. And it does show us that second-basemen play the fewest career games outside of catchers. Outfielders are very close behind, though.
The count of players at each position is also an interesting datapoint. In both groups, the third-basemen give us the least number of players with the qualifying number of games. Does this tell us something about the demands of the position, or is it more a comment on the types of players who play that position (eg, are they more injury prone, etc)? In both groups, however, the count of second basemen is at the bottom of the list.
With the shortest average career besides catcher, and with the fewest number of players even able to play that long, I think it's pretty clear that there's something about the second base position that keeps players from having long careers. Whether its for the reasons Brent brings up - not able to switch to another position, the physicality of turning the double play - or some other reason, I can't really say, but I believe that there's something there.
One final note about the numbers: in both groups, shortstops have both the longest careers and the (second-) most players making the list. I haven't investigated this further to prove this suspicion, but I suspect that this is because both high-offense and high-defense shortstops can hang around for a long time, either as a bopper at another position (Banks, Cal) or as a defensive specialist whose offense can be overlooked (Ozzie, Vizquel). It's good to be the shortstop.
Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Three Decades of Quality (Dodger) Baseball
One more foray into division predictions from the old preview guides...
As I was entering all of the predictions into the database, I noticed pretty early on that the Dodgers seemed to have some high predicted finishes. Looking at the final list, it bears this out: in 30 issues spanning 22 seasons (see the list of issues), the Dodgers are predicted to finish in 1st place 14 times, and in 2nd place 6 others. The remaining seasons are all third-place predictions, save for two fourth-place predictions (both in the 6-team NL West of the 1980s).
With all those first and second place predictions, the average predicted finish for the Dodgers across these issues is 1.93. This ties the Dodgers with the Yankees for highest average predicted finish. Further, with all of the first and second place finishes that the Dodgers actually achieved, their average actual finish across the same time is 2.17, giving them the best average actual finish of all 30 franchises (the Yankees are second, with an average actual finish of 2.2).
This struck me as odd. Having spent some time growing up in Los Angeles, I've always had a tie to the Dodgers. It never occurred to me that they were a dominant team, contending for the title every year. Sure, I don't recall ever expecting them to be terrible (*cough*Baltimore*cough*), but I never realized how well they stayed in there year-after-year.
They did win two World Series in the '80s (though Street & Smith predicted they'd finish 4th in 1988), but since then, it hasn't felt like much success. Maybe it's because they had only won one playoff game in the last 20 years before this past October.
It's easy to say that their high pre-season predicted finishes are due to being in the big city, with more people paying attention to them and their large pockets, et cetera. But that can only be used an excuse if they didn't live up to those high expectations, and they have. In the end, I think this is just a compliment to the Dodgers' system (I know I was shown otherwise when I said that about the Twins, but I think it's even more true here).
There is definitely plenty of money to be spent by the Dodgers and other teams who play in large markets, but that has hardly been a guarantee of success. Large market teams like the Cubs and Yankees and Red Sox have all had bad seasons in the timeframe we're looking at, while the Dodgers have held steady at or near the top every year. That's not to say access to money doesn't help. It's just that there has to be a quality team there in the first place for that money to make a difference.
With a good farm system producing a steady stream of ROYs and all-star talent, and with management giving some rein to the GMs to make trades and free agent signings (Kevin Brown and Andruw Jones not withstanding), the Dodgers are always able to hang in there. And when you throw their market-size and (theoretically large) wallet into the equation, you get a competitive and successful team every year.
The Dodgers may not have been dominant over these past three decades, but they have always been relevant. And that's something a lot of teams and their fanbases would love to be able to say.
As I was entering all of the predictions into the database, I noticed pretty early on that the Dodgers seemed to have some high predicted finishes. Looking at the final list, it bears this out: in 30 issues spanning 22 seasons (see the list of issues), the Dodgers are predicted to finish in 1st place 14 times, and in 2nd place 6 others. The remaining seasons are all third-place predictions, save for two fourth-place predictions (both in the 6-team NL West of the 1980s).
With all those first and second place predictions, the average predicted finish for the Dodgers across these issues is 1.93. This ties the Dodgers with the Yankees for highest average predicted finish. Further, with all of the first and second place finishes that the Dodgers actually achieved, their average actual finish across the same time is 2.17, giving them the best average actual finish of all 30 franchises (the Yankees are second, with an average actual finish of 2.2).
This struck me as odd. Having spent some time growing up in Los Angeles, I've always had a tie to the Dodgers. It never occurred to me that they were a dominant team, contending for the title every year. Sure, I don't recall ever expecting them to be terrible (*cough*Baltimore*cough*), but I never realized how well they stayed in there year-after-year.
They did win two World Series in the '80s (though Street & Smith predicted they'd finish 4th in 1988), but since then, it hasn't felt like much success. Maybe it's because they had only won one playoff game in the last 20 years before this past October.
It's easy to say that their high pre-season predicted finishes are due to being in the big city, with more people paying attention to them and their large pockets, et cetera. But that can only be used an excuse if they didn't live up to those high expectations, and they have. In the end, I think this is just a compliment to the Dodgers' system (I know I was shown otherwise when I said that about the Twins, but I think it's even more true here).
There is definitely plenty of money to be spent by the Dodgers and other teams who play in large markets, but that has hardly been a guarantee of success. Large market teams like the Cubs and Yankees and Red Sox have all had bad seasons in the timeframe we're looking at, while the Dodgers have held steady at or near the top every year. That's not to say access to money doesn't help. It's just that there has to be a quality team there in the first place for that money to make a difference.
With a good farm system producing a steady stream of ROYs and all-star talent, and with management giving some rein to the GMs to make trades and free agent signings (Kevin Brown and Andruw Jones not withstanding), the Dodgers are always able to hang in there. And when you throw their market-size and (theoretically large) wallet into the equation, you get a competitive and successful team every year.
The Dodgers may not have been dominant over these past three decades, but they have always been relevant. And that's something a lot of teams and their fanbases would love to be able to say.
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
Minnesota Twins: Consistently Beating Expectations
With the old baseball preview guides catalogued and entered into the database, I've been playing with the data to see what trends I could discover.
The first thing I did was compare each team's predicted finish in a given year with their actual finish. However, with 26 to 30 teams and 31 different issues' worth of predictions, that quickly became too cumbersome to compare easily. So I tried something else: I calculated each teams average finish over the years that I have issues (i.e., if I didn't have an issue for that year, then I didn't include it in the "average finish" calculation) and compared that to the average predicted finish. I knew that most of the year-to-year variance - finishing 4th one year instead of 3rd, then finishing 1st instead of 2nd, etc - would cancel itself out in the average, but I was hoping that there would be one or two teams that jumped out as being exceptionally gifted at overperforming (or underperforming) those expectations.
In running this comparison, it was very clear that the Minnesota Twins were the only real team who have done this.
While teams like the Orioles or the Cubs have had ups and downs over the last 30 or so years, they have been predicted pretty accurately by these magazines, with only a small discrepancy between the average predicted finish and the average actual finish. For the Twins, the average predicted finish - across 30 issues and 21 years, including most of the '80s, all of the later '90s, and nearly all of the 2000s - is 4.27, or worse than 4th place. However, the average actual finish for the Twins in the same year (weighted the same as the magazines) is 3.17, or slightly worse than 3rd place. The Twins, therefore, have outperformed the critics' predictions by more than a full division spot. That may not seem like much, but it is actually quite substantial. For the remaining 30 franchises (counting Montreal and Washington separately for these purposes), the predictions were all within half of a division spot (between 0.55 and -0.44 to be exact) and most of those within a third of a division spot.
Looking at the data, there are a few years of big performances that might skew the data: in 1984, the Twins finished in 2nd place, but were predicted by Street & Smith to finish 6th (of 7); in 1987, the Sporting News predicted them to finish in 5th place, but they instead went on to take the division and win the World Series; in 1991, the Sporting News predicted them to finish dead last (that's 7th place, mind you), but instead they went on, again, to take the division and the World Series. If we remove those three seasons, the average predicted finish is 4.07 and the average actual finish is 3.37, meaning that the Twins still outperformed their expectations by three-quarters of a division spot, still far-and-away the leader in that category. Clearly, the Twins are consistently performing beyond expectations, and in more than just those magical World Series runs.
Is there a good explanation? I feel confident that it's not just a product of small market bias. Plenty of big city teams - the Yankees, the Mets, the Cubs - had some lousy years in the seasons covered by this study, and they were all treated appropriately. So what is it?
If I had to venture a guess - and that's all I can do at the moment, since I don't know the Twins well enough - I would chalk it up to a quality organization making steady, positive decisions. With only two managers since 1986, a few star players here and there, some good young talent, and shrewd drafting and trading, you always have to respect the Twins. This year is a great example. At the beginning of the season, the Twins were already written off by most "analysts", with the division conceded to the Indians or Tigers. But those clubs faltered and the Twins kept playing steady ball, even without Johan Santana, until they forced that one-game playoff. I can imagine that 2008 probably wasn't too different from 1984 or 1988 or 2001, using their strengths as a well-built club to take advantage of others slipping.
It's a good trait to have, and can go a long way towards cultivating a good, enthusiastic fan base. If the world shifted and you were forced to root for a new team, I think you could do a lot worse than choosing the Twins.
(I have another post about the Dodgers steady, unnoticed period of consistently good teams coming, but it's late enough as it is... it'll have to wait)
The first thing I did was compare each team's predicted finish in a given year with their actual finish. However, with 26 to 30 teams and 31 different issues' worth of predictions, that quickly became too cumbersome to compare easily. So I tried something else: I calculated each teams average finish over the years that I have issues (i.e., if I didn't have an issue for that year, then I didn't include it in the "average finish" calculation) and compared that to the average predicted finish. I knew that most of the year-to-year variance - finishing 4th one year instead of 3rd, then finishing 1st instead of 2nd, etc - would cancel itself out in the average, but I was hoping that there would be one or two teams that jumped out as being exceptionally gifted at overperforming (or underperforming) those expectations.
In running this comparison, it was very clear that the Minnesota Twins were the only real team who have done this.
While teams like the Orioles or the Cubs have had ups and downs over the last 30 or so years, they have been predicted pretty accurately by these magazines, with only a small discrepancy between the average predicted finish and the average actual finish. For the Twins, the average predicted finish - across 30 issues and 21 years, including most of the '80s, all of the later '90s, and nearly all of the 2000s - is 4.27, or worse than 4th place. However, the average actual finish for the Twins in the same year (weighted the same as the magazines) is 3.17, or slightly worse than 3rd place. The Twins, therefore, have outperformed the critics' predictions by more than a full division spot. That may not seem like much, but it is actually quite substantial. For the remaining 30 franchises (counting Montreal and Washington separately for these purposes), the predictions were all within half of a division spot (between 0.55 and -0.44 to be exact) and most of those within a third of a division spot.
Looking at the data, there are a few years of big performances that might skew the data: in 1984, the Twins finished in 2nd place, but were predicted by Street & Smith to finish 6th (of 7); in 1987, the Sporting News predicted them to finish in 5th place, but they instead went on to take the division and win the World Series; in 1991, the Sporting News predicted them to finish dead last (that's 7th place, mind you), but instead they went on, again, to take the division and the World Series. If we remove those three seasons, the average predicted finish is 4.07 and the average actual finish is 3.37, meaning that the Twins still outperformed their expectations by three-quarters of a division spot, still far-and-away the leader in that category. Clearly, the Twins are consistently performing beyond expectations, and in more than just those magical World Series runs.
Is there a good explanation? I feel confident that it's not just a product of small market bias. Plenty of big city teams - the Yankees, the Mets, the Cubs - had some lousy years in the seasons covered by this study, and they were all treated appropriately. So what is it?
If I had to venture a guess - and that's all I can do at the moment, since I don't know the Twins well enough - I would chalk it up to a quality organization making steady, positive decisions. With only two managers since 1986, a few star players here and there, some good young talent, and shrewd drafting and trading, you always have to respect the Twins. This year is a great example. At the beginning of the season, the Twins were already written off by most "analysts", with the division conceded to the Indians or Tigers. But those clubs faltered and the Twins kept playing steady ball, even without Johan Santana, until they forced that one-game playoff. I can imagine that 2008 probably wasn't too different from 1984 or 1988 or 2001, using their strengths as a well-built club to take advantage of others slipping.
It's a good trait to have, and can go a long way towards cultivating a good, enthusiastic fan base. If the world shifted and you were forced to root for a new team, I think you could do a lot worse than choosing the Twins.
(I have another post about the Dodgers steady, unnoticed period of consistently good teams coming, but it's late enough as it is... it'll have to wait)
Monday, December 1, 2008
Baseball in the Year 2000: Predictions from 1981
Well, this isn't the preview guide analysis that I expected to post tonight, but it seemed too interesting to pass up.
This evening, the 1981 Sporting News Baseball Yearbook that I found on ebay was delivered to my house. I was excited to look through it, to see what they had to say about baseball at that time... could they foresee Fernando-mania? Was the Dodgers-Yankees Series predicted? Did people realize just how phenomenal Rickey's rookie year was, and what it would lead to? Was Mike Schmidt's status as the greatest third-basemen ever recognized this early (Schmidt and George Brett do share a cover on the magazine)?
Looking through the magazine, I came across an article with a great premise: predicting what will happen to baseball in the year 2000, still 20 years away from the time this was written. Introducing the article, author Joseph Surso wrote, with tongue at least a little in cheek:
But the article doesn't spend much time paying attention to the author's point-of-view, and instead focuses on the predictions of several prominent baseball men.
There are a couple more interesting takes on the "baseball in the year 2000" theme:
The most ironic of the statements, however, comes from the Montreal Expos VP of Player Development, Jim Fanning:
As I've said before, looking through these old baseball preview guides can be quite interesting, and articles like these just make me want to keep on reading.
This evening, the 1981 Sporting News Baseball Yearbook that I found on ebay was delivered to my house. I was excited to look through it, to see what they had to say about baseball at that time... could they foresee Fernando-mania? Was the Dodgers-Yankees Series predicted? Did people realize just how phenomenal Rickey's rookie year was, and what it would lead to? Was Mike Schmidt's status as the greatest third-basemen ever recognized this early (Schmidt and George Brett do share a cover on the magazine)?
Looking through the magazine, I came across an article with a great premise: predicting what will happen to baseball in the year 2000, still 20 years away from the time this was written. Introducing the article, author Joseph Surso wrote, with tongue at least a little in cheek:
"One thing you can bet on: the green that will continue to transform the game the most is mint-green, not grass-green. And, considering the stampede for green at all levels of the game in 1981, you almost can envision three leagues, at least six divisions and maybe nine, tiers of playoffs, a World Series with Japan and Latin America, 7-foot pitchers, $3,000,000-a-year stars, 10 or so men to a side, metal bats, rabbit balls, monster promotional give-aways every night, network control of schedules and maybe even of players' contracts, and $25 tickets if all the above don't work."What I like best about this vision isn't how right most of it is (7-foot pitchers, monster promotional give-aways, network control of schedules), but just how naively insufficient some of those numbers are ($3 million players? $25 tickets?). It's easy to imagine that these numbers were actually put in there as kind of a "worst case scenario" prediction, yet Major League Baseball has blown these numbers out of the water.
But the article doesn't spend much time paying attention to the author's point-of-view, and instead focuses on the predictions of several prominent baseball men.
Commissioner Bowie Kuhn (speaking "whimsically"): "In the year 2000... I see Pete Rose getting 200 hits... I see the National League favoring interleague play and the American League opposed... The National League will adopt the DH and the American League will abandon it..."That last quote by MLB Labor Relations Director Ray Grebey is the biggie, in my mind... Baseball couldn't stand $1 or $2 millions dollar annual contracts? Wow. I know that salary structures were significantly different back then and that free agency hadn't yet left it's real mark on the sport (these magazines actually provide a pretty good look at the contemporary feelings of free agency from year to year) and that this quote comes from MLB's senior spin man, but it still seems crazy to think the people couldn't foresee the vast amounts of money that could come into the business of baseball in 20 years time.
Stan Musial (whose NL record for hits was expected to be eclipsed by Rose that year): "In the year 2000, everybody will be making a million dollars with pay TV. That's the salvation of sports: pay TV..."
Ray Grebey, director of labor relations for MLB: "Pay TV? Everybody thinks it will revolutionize the economics of the game. But pay tv isn't necessarily an extra source of revenue for baseball. You can only show your game in one place. So I don't foresee a revolution, I don't think things will be much different from now if we all keep our heads and work out our problems. But as for $1 million a year or $2 million a year for everybody, there's no way that baseball could stand it..."
There are a couple more interesting takes on the "baseball in the year 2000" theme:
Sadaharu Oh: "In the year 2000, society will be more civilized and developed than at the present time. Science will make the world more sedentary, too, so baseball spectators will want to see more of the spirit of the game, especially since everything will be automatic... However, the world may be short of wood for baseball bats. So I believe we will use aluminum or metal bats, and the game of baseball will be very, very offensive and exciting because there will be more hitting... The stadiums may have to become bigger. Not all, perhaps, but some stadiums will have to be enlarged."Oh's take on the added offense of the future and of how lazy people will be in the future is probably the most prescient thing I've read in any of these magazines. The fear of a shortage of trees, however, seems a typical '80s-type worry, though, and one that I'm sure we're all glad is unfounded. Instead, we had steroids (and band-box stadiums, the opposite of Oh's prediction, actually) take place of the aluminum bats.
Harry Minor, scout for NY Mets: "We're going to radar guns to measure pitcher's velocity now, so by the year 2000 there's no telling how mechanized we'll become in scouting and testing talent. I'm sure we'll have small hand models of radar guns and, with video cassettes, you could tape a ball game as a scout, go home and play it out again at your leisure. Replay, slow motion, the works.
The most ironic of the statements, however, comes from the Montreal Expos VP of Player Development, Jim Fanning:
"There will be all kinds of leagues and divisions. All the existing cities in the big leagues will stay, and new ones will be hammering at the door to get in.... Also, there'll be enough domed stadiums in baseball for teams in cities like Denver, Tampa Bay, Vancouver, and Buffalo, and at least four more cities..."The prediction for ballclubs in Denver and Tampa Bay (and there's even a rendering of the possible Tampa stadium included in the article) is pretty spot on, but it's the comment about "all the existing cities...will stay" that I thought was funny. Montreal, after all, is the only major league city from 1981 that no longer has a ballclub. Of course, the Expos didn't move to Washington until 2004, so I guess technically he was correct.
As I've said before, looking through these old baseball preview guides can be quite interesting, and articles like these just make me want to keep on reading.
A brief note on Preview Guides
Every February, as pitchers and catchers report to Florida and Arizona for Spring Training, a certain batch of magazines make their way to racks at local stores: the annual baseball preview guides, from publishers like Athlon, Street and Smith’s, and the Sporting News. And, every February for the last ten years (and counting), I go out of my way to find these magazines and take them home. I read the recaps of the previous season, the one or two feature articles, and the overview of each team, as they discuss the strengths and weaknesses of a team’s bullpen or middle infield or bench. (I've mentioned this before.)
At some point, I realized that looking at these old preview guides years later, with some historical perspective, was sometimes more interesting than reading them the week they come out. I mean, how much more interesting is the following sentence today with some historical perspective than it was 10 years ago: “The outfield combination of [Sammy] Sosa and [Henry] Rodriguez could combine to hit 60 home runs this season [in 1998], but they could also strike out 250 times”?
Once I realized how much enjoyment I could get out of these older magazines, I started buying even older issues from places like ebay. And now that I have issues from 22 different years, I decided to get a little more technical. Being the computer guy that I am, I began cataloging my collection in a computer database, including what issues I own, what players are on the covers of these issues, and, most importantly, what predictions the magazine made, from division finishes to MVP and Comeback Player of the Year.
With the database now up-to-date, I’ve decided to take a look at the data itself. How well do the different magazines do in making their predictions? Are there trends in what teams they predict to finish well (or poorly)? Do the MVP and Cy Young and Rookie of the Year predictions do a good job at selecting top-tier players, if not for that year then in the future? If we read through the old profiles, can we find players who we've forgotten about even though they were highly touted by their contemporaries? Can these contemporary accounts help give us an insight into future Hall of Fame voting? Are there players who have long runs (10+ years?) of contemporary acclaim but who end up pushed aside by history and, if so, why? What else can this collection of magazines tell us about baseball over the last 30+ years? Those are some of the questions that I hope to investigate here as I look deeper into this collection.
So, while it may not be interesting to everyone out there, it is interesting to me and I can't be the only one. With that in mind, I'm going to continue to track these guides and write about the interesting things that I find in them. Plus, these posts are mostly for myself anyway, so what's the harm? My first one or two posts on this subject should be up soon enough.
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