Keeping Score: Who Was Best for the Boss? – Bats Blog – NYTimes.com 11th June 2010
Posted by Andy on July 16, 2010
Keeping Score: Who Was Best for the Boss? – Bats Blog – NYTimes.com 11th June 2010
I got to fill in again for the latest edition of Sean's weekly NY Times column. I'm guessing he asked me do it because the post had to be about Steinbrenner and Yankees, and a guy who poses for pictures in front of a huge map of Fenway park wasn't about to write that column 🙂
Anyway, Yankees fans might be interested to click through to see who I picked as the best player of the Steinbrenner era, as well as the best draftee, international signing, free agent, and trade acquisition.
My post is based on Wins Above Replacement. As part of the research, check out what I found. Here are the worst Fielding Runs totals, 1901-2010:
| Rk | Player | Rfield | From | To | Pos | Tm |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Gary Sheffield | -136 | 1988 | 2009 | 975D/63 | MIL-SDP-TOT-FLA-LAD-ATL-NYY-DET-NYM |
| 2 | Derek Jeter | -128 | 1995 | 2010 | *6/D | NYY |
| 3 | Bernie Williams | -118 | 1991 | 2006 | *8D/97 | NYY |
| 4 | Danny Tartabull | -116 | 1984 | 1997 | *9D/4675 | SEA-KCR-NYY-TOT-CHW-PHI |
| 5 | Manny Ramirez | -114 | 1993 | 2010 | 79D | CLE-BOS-TOT-LAD |
| 6 | Eddie Yost | -113 | 1944 | 1962 | *5/39764 | WSH-DET-LAA |
| 7 | Ricky Gutierrez | -112 | 1993 | 2004 | *64/579D | SDP-HOU-CHC-CLE-TOT |
| 8 | Rick Monday | -110 | 1966 | 1984 | *89/73 | KCA-OAK-CHC-LAD |
| 9 | Dick Allen | -109 | 1963 | 1977 | 357/46D8 | PHI-STL-LAD-CHW-OAK |
| 10 | Jeff Burroughs | -104 | 1970 | 1985 | *97D/3 | WSA-TEX-ATL-SEA-OAK-TOR |
| 11 | Howard Johnson | -101 | 1982 | 1995 | *56/789D43 | DET-NYM-COL-CHC |
| 12 | Frank Howard | -101 | 1958 | 1973 | 793/D | LAD-WSA-TOT-DET |
| 13 | Dean Palmer | -100 | 1989 | 2003 | *5D/736 | TEX-TOT-KCR-DET |
Four Yankees, including two long-timers, top the list. Still, this was not enough to hurt Jeter much in the overall rankings...
July 16th, 2010 at 9:18 am
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by Jon Meyers, Baseball Reference. Baseball Reference said: B-R Blog: Keeping Score: Who Was Best for the Boss? – Bats Blog – NYTimes.com 11th June 2010 http://bit.ly/9YsRGl [...]
July 16th, 2010 at 10:28 am
I have tp admit, Jeter making that list was a surprise to me.
July 16th, 2010 at 10:33 am
There's so many things to say about the typical comments to these weekly pieces. I'll just focus on the one who said "Is it supposed to be news that Jeter and Rivera are the best?" Whereas if you had argued another answer, he'd surely say that your analysis is crazy. There's absolutely no way that article could have pleased him. It contains non-Triple Crown stats, so he was predisposed to find fault with it.
July 16th, 2010 at 10:35 am
I have taken advice from Neil and don't read the comments posted there. I knew beforehand, as I did with the Straburg one I wrote, that a lot of comments would be negative. Keep in mind that for ever person who comments and disagrees, there are 1,000 people who read it, agree, and do not comment.
July 16th, 2010 at 10:50 am
I forgot to say thanks, by the way, to Johnny Twisto, who helped me research that article.
July 16th, 2010 at 11:16 am
Andy- Your article doesn't address the post season. I have never calculated a WAR, nor do I have any idea about how to do so. Comparing Jeter's career offensive post-season stats to players with similar seasons, it seems to be worth about 2-3 WAR. Meanwhile Mariano's pitching numbers seem to be worth about 3 times that. But I really have no idea.
July 16th, 2010 at 11:41 am
Sorry - That came out more contentious than I planned. Andy- I enjoyed your article, but I wonder about the post-season...
July 16th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
So Jeter and Williams are nearly the two worst defensive ever to play the game? Guess that goes to show that a team is wasting it's time being strong defensively up the middle. Just the opposite. A team should be weak defensively up the middle. Or maybe there's something else going on here...
July 16th, 2010 at 12:11 pm
What's going on is that those guys were so good with the bat that they stuck around for a long time, and even being just somewhat below average on defense adds up over all those years.
The idea of being 'strong up the middle' is sort of out of date I think. As I wrote a few weeks back when I talked about the disappearance of defensive specialists from the game, I think pretty much all defenders these days have the baseline set of skills that were being called for 50-75 years ago when that expression was commonly used.
July 16th, 2010 at 12:29 pm
Andy,
Good article, good research Twisto, I enjoyed it and found it interesting. Don't let the angry comments get you down, think of yourself like a baseball version of Johnny Appleseed. Just plant some good seeds, people will find them eventually.
I'm always amazed at the angry/condescending tone people have when they don't agree with something like WAR. And they never seem to have a counter argument other than it's B.S. magic, Voodoo, or wasting time in your Mother's basement.
I guess it's Human Nature, by a certain age, people get certain perceptions of what they believe regardless of validity of those perceptions.
Here's a couple of thoughts:
*Most of the great moves for those 1976-1981 Yankees came from great Trades not Free Agency: Nettles, Randolph, Chamblis, Dent, Rivers, Lyle, and Figueroa.
*Henderson was an underrated player. His 1985 season is one of the best 10-20 seasons of the last 40 years and it's never brought up as an all-time great season. Henderson probably should have won about 4 MVP awards during his career.
*Those '1976-1980 Yankees were great defensively. And the '77-78 Yankees Infield was one of the greatest defensive infields of the last 50 years.
*Sorry to say but Don Mattingly is overrated. He was great during a short peak: 1984-1987, four seasons. He was good from 1988-1989, and then from 1990-1995 he was basically Sid Bream or Greg Colbrunn. His 1990-1995 is .289/.345/.405 with an ops+ of 104. He was very good defensively but nowhere near in the class of Keith Hernandez. And there's no way he deserved all those Gold Gloves, he probably deserved 5-6. He didn't deserve the 1985 MVP, Henderson of Brett should have won it. And Seriously, why is he still on the HOF Ballot???? And why is Keith Hernandez not on the HOF ballot?? Hernandez has a 61-WAR compared to Mattingly's 39.8.
As Far as the Field Runs go:
*Sheffield should have been a DH all his career.
*If Jeter was actually as good defensively as people believe he is/was, then he would be one of the top 15 Players in baseball history. As it is he's probably going to finish in the top 50.
*Bernie Williams was pretty good during the early part of his career but was kept in Center Field way too long. He probably should have been moved to left field by 1998. One of Torre's big mistakes was keeping him in Center from 2002-2005. Some of those 2000-2008 Yankee Teams were just brutal defensively.
*The gold glove is a terrible award that distorts things more than it illuminates
*Manny Ramierez should have been a DH his whole career.
*Why was Eddie Yost kept at 3b all those years?? Might have been a HOF caliber player at first with his .395 career on base percentage.
*It would have been better if Howard and Allen came into the league 10-12 years later and could have DH'd.
*Why in the hell did the Cubs have Monday in Center Field from 1974-1976? His defense is part of the reason why Rick Reuschel is underrated.
*How many bad defensive players did the Mets have from 1987-1993??? Hojo should have been a DH in the A.L. or at least a LF/1b in the N.L.
July 16th, 2010 at 12:41 pm
I'm fine with using WAR, but to say that Jeter is the greatest Yankee of the Steinbrenner era based on total wins above replacement for each player's tenure with the Yankees is really stacking the deck, because Jeter has a tenure that's substantially longer than anyone -- only one Yankee is within 2000 plate appearances of Jeter (that other player being Bernie Williams). It's not like the Reds of the same era, where you actually have some sort of competition (though if you look to average WAR, Joe Morgan was far and away the winner -- Rose, Bench, and Larkin top the list if you look at total WAR with Cincinnati, followed by Morgan, who averaged nearly 8 wins above replacement with CIN).
Given the huge disparity in tenure with the Yankees, it seems to me the proper measure would be average WAR per season, where Derek Jeter (69.9/16 = 4.36 wins above replacement per year) falls ludicrously short of Rickey Henderson and the untrue Yankee.
Rickey Henderson 30.1/5 = 6.02 wins above replacement per year
Alex Rodriguez (yes, you can tell I am not a Yankee fan) with 40.2/7 = 5.74
The analysis isn't changed even if you set aside the partial season that Jeter had in his debut -- that brings him to an average of 4.48 per year -- good, certainly enough to put him in the Hall of Fame even for people who think he's supremely overappreciated -- but not in the same conversation with Henderson or A-Rod. (Rather, it's more along the lines of C.C. Sabathia in 2009.) Having checked a couple other players, it seems likely Jeter would finish 3rd under this analysis, ahead of Willie Randolph and Graig Nettles (who appeared to be the next major figures on the list, at which point you'd start to get a lot more pitchers showing up).
Using your calculus, Andy Pettitte is a substantially greater Yankee pitcher (50.1 WAR, 115 ERA+) than Roger Clemens (20.4 WAR, 114 ERA+), despite them having roughly equivalent per year averages 3.27 wins above replacement per year for Pettitte, 3.4 for Clemens. Mike Mussina (30.3 WAR, 115 ERA) actually beats both of them (3.7875 average).
July 16th, 2010 at 12:50 pm
John Q, Tim, thanks. Good additions.
Tim, there is sort of a chicken-and-egg argument when it comes to WAR and longevity. Jeter has been really good for a long time. The higher and higher his WAR goes is a tribute to what he has produced. In his case, it's pretty straightforward I think. But there are plenty of other cases of players who are good enough to stay in the league but produce only 0.5 or 1.0 WAR per season, who may eventually drag their way up on a WAR leaderboard through longevity but not because they were great.
There's no doubt that when normalized by year, Henderson and A-Rod have meant more to Yankee wins than Jeter has--but the point of the article was to measure who helped win the most over the entire Steinbrenner era, not necessarily who was the best at helping.
So, I agree with you--it just wasn't the point of that particular article.
July 16th, 2010 at 1:04 pm
Mike D,
Usually players that are that bad defensively are great offensively otherwise they wouldn't be full-time players in the majors.
The only anomaly is Ricky Guiterez which was just a horrible slip because he couldn't hit either. If you want a reason why those 90's Astros never won a pennant, point to Ricky Guiterez.
Also, If you want a reason why the Yankees never won a World Series from 2001-2008, look to their horrible defenses.
Tim,
Valid point, but I think Andy was just trying to point out who had the best "Yankee Career" during the Steinbrenner era.
You could look at peak level was well. You could make a list of the Yankees with the best "5 seasons", which I guess would be Henderson or A-Rod. You could also take that number and add it to the players career numbers and that would give you a useful number as well. Example, (Best 5WAR Seasons + Career WAR)/2=Best Yankee. You can add peak, but career value should be more heavily weighted.
July 16th, 2010 at 1:36 pm
This is just a quick list of Yankee players from 1973-2010 with WAR for the Best 5 seasons plus their Yankee career numbers divided by 2. I didn't check every player so I may have missed a few. Jeter longevity also points to the fact of Steinbrenner not trading him away like he did to a lot of player during the 70's-80's.
Jeter
Best 5-34.2
Ynk Car:69.9
Yankee Value: 52.05
Willie Randolph:
Best 5-26.6
Ynk Car-49.8
Yankee Value: 38.2
Bernie Williams:
Best 5-27.9
Ynk Car-47.3
Yankee Value: 37.6
A-Rod:
Best 5-34.3
Ynk Car- 37.25
Yankee Value: 37.25
Posada:
Best 5-26.6
Ynk Car-45.8
Yankee Value: 36.2
Mattingly:
Best 5-29.2
Ynk Car-39.8
Yankee Value: 34.65
Nettles:
Best 5-27.5
Ynk Car-40.6
Yankee Value: 34.05
Henderson:
Best 5-30.1
Ynk Car-30.1
Yankee Value: 30.1
Willie Randolph is just a tremendously underrated player which is strange for a Yankee. He's kind of remembered as a bit player, but he's really a borderline HOF player. Henderson did all that in about 4 1/2 seasons.
It's interesting to note that Randolph, Posada and B. Williams ranked higher than Mattingly.
Jeter is clearly the most productive/valuable Yankee position player during the Steinbrenner era.
July 16th, 2010 at 1:51 pm
[...] article from baseball-reference.com, which has Jeter as the 2nd worst defensive player. Ever. Keeping Score: Who Was Best for the Boss? ? Bats Blog ? NYTimes.com 11th June 2010 Baseball-Referenc... OR, read this article from the Hardball Times. An aside on Jeter’s defense If you dont want [...]
July 16th, 2010 at 2:16 pm
Andy, keep up the good work.
Don't listen to the knuckle heads at the Times.
July 16th, 2010 at 6:39 pm
Dang, Andy. Just got around to reading it. Good job. I won't repeat what anyone said above, but isn't if funny that as the statistics advance in accuracy, it starts to verify things we thought were true, even as they happened all those years ago - i.e. Mattingly wasn;t really that impressive, Rickey (is it OK if we go third person on Rickey?) was really underrated, as were Nettles, Guidry and Randolph. Anyway, keep it up.
July 17th, 2010 at 1:56 pm
I just wanted to point out that two non-players long associated with the Yankees have made it to the In Memoriam list on the front page here in the past several days, but I have yet to see Maje McDonnell's name show up there.
http://www.baseball-reference.com/bullpen/Maje_McDonnell
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maje_McDonnell
I also spent a few innings at the Reading Phillies-Trenton Thunder game in Trenton last night wondering what NJ official had died to cause the Old Glories to be at half-mast, but I eventually figured it out.
July 19th, 2010 at 7:01 am
[...] recently wrote an article for the NY Times about the best player during George Steinbrenner's reign. In talking to Neil, he got the idea that [...]