Baseball Auction Poll #1

[BishopMVP]

After a few rounds of bidding for the players, we have arrived at the final stage, where FOFC votes on which team is best. There are two polls here, with the top two teams from each advancing for one final poll. I will link to(sometimes extensive) summaries from everyone who sent them to me, and roundups for the other teams. If anyone wants their write-up changed, let me know and I’ll edit it. This is a discussion thread until Monday, when I’ll change it to a poll. Voting can be based on whatever criteria you want.

This division consists of:

Oykib - http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/~fof/forums/showpost.php?p=381344&postcount=44

Chief Rum - http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/~fof/forums/showpost.php?p=380178&postcount=37

Vince - http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/~fof/forums/showpost.php?p=379115&postcount=28 (http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/~fof/forums/showpost.php?p=379115&postcount=28)

Maple Leafs - http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/~fof/forums/showpost.php?p=373912&postcount=3

ntndeacon - http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/~fof/forums/showpost.php?p=380176&postcount=36

Suicane75 - http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/~fof/forums/showpost.php?p=376257&postcount=13

Booj - http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/~fof/forums/showpost.php?p=369591&postcount=15
Sooner333 - http://dynamic2.gamespy.com/~fof/forums/showpost.php?p=387086&postcount=46

[ISiddiqui]

Voting can be based on whatever criteria you want.

How about just a straight poll on which team you think would win the most? :D

[BishopMVP]

How about just a straight poll on which team you think would win the most? :D
That's more along the lines of whether you judge based on single season or career play. And how much credit you give for Negro Leaguers/Japanese Players.

[John Galt]

My initial inclination is that oykib and Maple Leafs have the best rosters. I'm not as familiar with some teams pitchers and that could sway my opinion. It is also very hard to compare teams with strong offense/weak pitching with weak offense/strong pitching. It will be interesting to hear what other people think.

[ISiddiqui]

That's more along the lines of whether you judge based on single season or career play. And how much credit you give for Negro Leaguers/Japanese Players.

Well, I'm sure some of us picked players for career play and others for their best season, and perhaps both catagories on the same team! So I think we should rely on the opinions of the voters, on which counts more (season or career).

[oykib]

I thought that it's best to consider the players best six seasons for the determination of how good he was. Take whichever season that you like and that gets weighted three times. The two adjacent seasons are weighted two times and the remaining three-- two before and one after or two after and one before-- are weighted as one season each. Then, of course, we divide the totals by ten. That includes games played.

That way we give more credit to a player who was consistent and durable. But we can't really demand that a player be great. We can't really go with one year wonders. Usually, those guys don't repeat because there performance was a fluke, or they just weren't durable. They certainly wouldn't put up those seasons if they were facing the caliber of competition in our league. As an example, take Brady Anderson's 1996 season. Do we really think that he could put up 50 homers against the pitcher's in our league? Here are the numbers:


Year Ag Tm Lg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG TB SH SF IBB HBP GDP
1996 32 BAL AL 149 579 117 172 37 5 50 110 21 8 76 106 .297 .396 .637 369 6 4 1 22 11

Compare those to these numbers:

Year Ag Tm Lg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG TB SH SF IBB HBP GDP
1996 32 BAL AL 149 579 117 172 37 5 50 110 21 8 76 106 .297 .396 .637 369 6 4 1 22 11
1996 32 BAL AL 149 579 117 172 37 5 50 110 21 8 76 106 .297 .396 .637 369 6 4 1 22 11
1996 32 BAL AL 149 579 117 172 37 5 50 110 21 8 76 106 .297 .396 .637 369 6 4 1 22 11
1997 33 BAL AL 151 590 97 170 39 7 18 73 18 12 84 105 .288 .393 .469 277 2 1 6 19 1
1997 33 BAL AL 151 590 97 170 39 7 18 73 18 12 84 105 .288 .393 .469 277 2 1 6 19 1
1995 31 BAL AL 143 554 108 145 33 10 16 64 26 7 87 111 .262 .371 .444 246 4 2 4 10 3
1995 31 BAL AL 143 554 108 145 33 10 16 64 26 7 87 111 .262 .371 .444 246 4 2 4 10 3
1998 34 BAL AL 133 479 84 113 28 3 18 51 21 7 75 78 .236 .356 .420 201 4 1 1 15 7
1999 35 BAL AL 150 564 109 159 28 5 24 81 36 7 96 105 .282 .404 .477 269 1 7 7 24 6
1994 30 BAL AL 111 453 78 119 25 5 12 48 31 1 57 75 .263 .356 .419 190 3 2 3 10 7

Adjusted peak season:
Year Ag Tm Lg G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO BA OBP SLG TB SH SF IBB HBP GDP
94-9 32 BAL AL 143 552 102 154 34 6 27 78 24 8 80 101 .278 .382 .510 281 4 3 3 15 7


The adjusted peak numbers seem much more in line with what we expect from him. It's reasonable that he had a power surge. But the 50 homers were a fluke. His SLG that year was not even within 150 points of his next best number. I think the adjusted numbers better reflect his true abilities (more steals, more walks, fewer strikeouts, and not fifty homers).

But we didn't take the power surge away. He did hit a phenomenal number of homers in 1996. But it's something he wouldn't be likely to duplicate even if we put him in the exact same circumstances. It's why, even weighted as it is, his dinger total falls to about half of the 50 he put up in 1996.

It should be easy then to get an idea of where each Major leaguer rates. Of course there is still a subjective element for defense, era adjustment, and intangibles. But one of the benefits of the system above if that you have to assign an age to your player. It's fine if you want to have the "Pops" Willie Stargell from 1979, he was an MVP that year. But you are going to have to take his adjacent injury prone seasons and his bad defensive reputation along with his great leadership.

If we do his worksheet for games played, then you can only expect to have him for 97 games. If you take the younger more potent Stargell, you get better (amazing, actually) production without the veteran leadership. But no matter which age you take him, he's not going to play for more than a 135-140 games, because he was never that durable and only played as many as 140 games five times in a 21 year career-- and never played 150 games.

The same is true for every roster on the team. We could allow people to continue to add adjacent seasons for the players who were truly consistent for more years as long as they go with matched pairs of seasons that are earlier and later than the 'prime' season. Most players are going to be downgraded if we do that. But some players (the all-time greats) will improve.

I believe thats the best way to rate the Major Leauers. We can also use those seasons to determine OPS+ and ERA+ easily to determine the level of play as compared to competition. Those come in raw numbers and are very easily divisible.

For Negro Leaguers and Japanese players, we can just include a capsule of their bio and include a stat projection of them had they played in the majors during their era. Every Negro leaguer has MLB comparables, so the numbers should look somewhat similar to the comparable guys. We can set up a challenge system or something for the stat projections.

[oykib]

The only site I can find with projections is the Integrated Nines at: http://www.i9s.org/i9s.cfm

Their numbers seem pretty solid. They only have rankings for players that debuted up until about 1920 so far. So, that means we don't have a few stars like Satchel Paige, James Bell, and Josh Gibson. For them we'll have to make our own projections. The methodology they use is explained on the site. They scale results to the average league year of the contemporary Major leagues. It seems that the pitching in the Negro Leagues wasn't as good as the Majors, but that the hitters numbers are quite good for the best players.

[oykib]

I've got an excel sheet to do translations of peak stretch like the one I detailed above for both hitters and pitchers.

My position players by that method are:


Name Years G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG TB HBP

Chipper Jones 1997-02 158 578 113 182 37 2 36 108 17 5 104 86 0.316 0.421 0.574 332 2

Max Bishop 1928-33 125 453 104 124 27 4 6 39 3 3 114 49 0.274 0.423 0.389 176 3

Tim Raines 1982-7 152 592 109 186 33 10 10 55 72 10 84 64 0.314 0.401 0.455 270 3

Barry Larkin 1993-8 124 452 87 138 27 5 16 62 33 5 68 49 0.305 0.399 0.492 222 3

Vlad Guerrero 1998-03 153 576 101 188 34 6 39 115 19 11 59 74 0.327 0.397 0.609 351 8

Eddie Murray 1982-7 156 576 98 174 30 2 29 109 6 2 88 79 0.302 0.396 0.514 296 2

Larry Doby 1948-53 140 497 99 147 25 5 24 89 7 5 92 86 0.296 0.411 0.511 254 5

Jim Edmonds 1998-03 139 475 97 142 32 1 30 92 6 4 82 130 0.299 0.407 0.559 266 5



Name Years W L G GS GF CG SHO SV IP H R ER HR BB SO ERA WHIP K/9 BB/9 K:BB

Dazzy Vance 1925-30 17 12 33 29 3 21 2 1 250 1/3 229 95 82 11 63 173 2.94 1.16 6.22 2.25 2.77:1

Ron Guidry 1976-81 17 6 31 28 2 11 5 1 217 177 71 63 15 65 184 2.60 1.11 7.61 2.69 2.83:1

Robin Roberts 1950-55 24 13 43 39 3 29 4 2 329 2/3 299 116 105 29 58 169 2.86 1.08 4.62 1.58 2.92:1

Mike Mussina 1994-9 16 9 32 32 0 4 1 0 217 1/2 205 94 88 25 53 184 3.64 1.19 7.62 2.18 3.5:1

Sal Maglie '45,50-54 17 6 36 27 4 14 4 2 218 1/3 195 82 72 18 72 108 2.98 1.22 4.46 2.96 1.51:1

Mel Parnell 1948-53 19 9 38 31 5 18 3 2 244 2/3 234 103 88 12 104 100 3.25 1.38 3.67 3.81 .96:1

Harry Breecheen 1946-50 16 10 31 28 2 17 4 1 212 2/3 193 76 68 13 57 106 2.85 1.17 4.49 2.39 1.88:1


If anyone wants it, I can send it to you.
I used the same formula.
Then, I applied Jim Albright's Japanese League translation to get the stats for Nomura and Nagashima had played in the majors.

Runs:* 0.884 ______ Hits:* 0.904
2B:* 0.829_________3B* 2.149
HR:* 0.524_________RBI* 0.778
SO:* 1.017_________BB:* 1.148




Name Years G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG TB HBP

Shigeo Nagashima 1959-64 143 502 78 153 27 19 15 71 21 9 96 43 0.304 0.418 0.522 262 3

Katsuya Nomura 1963-8 150 526 82 146 21 1 22 91 8 3 93 82 0.278 0.393 0.448 236 7



Right now I'm trying to come up with a method for the Negro
Leaguers who haven't yet been rated by Integrated Nines and
one for Japanese Pitchers.

These are the guys at I9s:


Name Years G AB R H 2B 3B HR RBI SB CS BB SO AVG OBP SLG TB HBP

Oscar Charleston 1918-23 147 568 165 205 37 20 35 126 52 18 64 51 0.360 0.425 0.680 386 0

Louis Santop 1915-19 99 394 69 126 24 9 7 51 8 6 33 50 0.319 0.372 0.474 187 0

Bullet Rogan 1921-6 113 457 95 151 31 12 15 73 22 13 27 55 0.329 0.366 0.546 250 0

Name Years W L G GS IP H R ER HR BB SO ERA WHIP K/9 BB/9 K:BB LG:ERA


Joe Williams 1915-20 23 14 40 38 340 1/3 278 74 69 5 74 226 1.83 1.03 5.97 1.96 3.05:1 2.92

Bullet Rogan 1921-6 18 15 39 34 315 2/3 310 140 132 6 95 136 3.78 1.28 3.88 2.71 1.43:1 4.11