Tipping Pitches: Sports: The Importance of the Average Player

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Sunday, February 21, 2010

Sports: The Importance of the Average Player



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As you know, I've been working on a project to rank the 300 greatest offensive baseball players of all time. I am starting with number one.

I've been putting Baseball-Reference and Excel to work during the past week. Past several weeks, really. I am luckily a little more than dangerous with spreadsheets, so I can make some very quick magic of data and a plan.

Here is what I'm doing to make my final rankings:

1) Collect the stats of the 1,000 retired players who accumulated the most hits during their careers (this is a safe number from which I can expect to find my top 300 players);
2) Compare the raw career data of all players, between eras;
3) Compare ratios of career stats over average player had the hypothetical player had the same number of plate appearances;
4) Compare ratios of individual season by taking the star player's stats over the hypothetical average player (based on the average player's number of plate appearances, not the star player's).

Pete Rose enhanced his greatness by playing above the league average for a long time
As we know, the raw data in #2 has minimal value. It has some. It's interesting to know. But it is data that has no perspective. It's simply dangerous to compare the home runs hit by Honus Wagner, for example, to those hit by Cal Ripken.

So it is important to compare player stats to a baseline, which I like to call the average player. It is a theoretical player that doesn't exist. But the data is variable from year to year to reflect the environment of the star player's production.

In the end, the average player is critical to the success of this project. It is important to me to find the truth in data in order to make assumptions about players. The only way you can find truth is by taking statistics in perspective.

Therefore, how much greater were Babe Ruth's 60 home runs than that of the average player in 1927? And how does such a performance stack up in the history of baseball?

Also, if you were to take the ratios of Ruth's home runs to the league average for each season of his career, how many of his seasons would be among the all-time greats (he actually has the four highest ratios ever)?

Focusing on the right statistics is an important chore. Avoid duplication that may favor a particular type of player. Don't focus on numbers of little significance, like sacrifice flies. And, whenever possible, focus on stats that apply to all eras (only a handful of stats were kept dating back to 1876).

Let me show you a quick example of some of the work I've been doing. Following are the career stats of Pete Rose when compared to the the average player over the same number of plate appearances, along with the resultant ratios:

Player R H HR RBI SB BB TB BA OBP SLG OPS
Pete Rose 2,165 4,256 160 1,314 198 1,566 5,752 .303 .375 .409 .784
Avg Player 1,709 3,592 318 1,594 248 1,333 5,316 .254 .319 .376 .695
Ratio 1.27 1.18 0.50 0.82 0.80 1.17 1.08 1.19 1.17 1.09 1.13

So in this case, both Pete Rose and the average player had 15,861 plate appearances to accumulate their stats. The average player's rate of success was different from year to year. Note that I find other stats as well, but I am limited for space here.

As you can tell from the numbers above, Pete Rose performed above the league average in runs, hits, walks, total bases, batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage and OPS; he was below average in home runs, runs batted in and (surprisingly) stolen bases.

So, Rose has certain ratios for each career offensive statistic. You will remember that I am comparing him to 31 other greats to find the greatest player of all time (to begin this project). You may be interested in knowing Rose's ranks when compared to those other 31 players in these statistics:

R (23)
H (14)
HR (31)
RBI (30)
SB (25)
BB (23)
BA (20)
OBP (26)
SLG (32)
OPS (31)
TB (31)

Think it's strange that the game's all-time hits king is 14th when compared to the other 31 players in ratio over the average player? Not when you break it down. Rose accumulated that many hits, not because he was the greatest hitter of all time, but because he was a very good hitter who played a long, long time. Finishing with a batting average 19% above the league average is good, but even the average hitter will accumulate nearly 3,600 hits with close to 16,000 plate appearances (see the table above).

Of course, Rose's long career hinders him in a sense. He played well beyond his prime, so his skills diminished and ratios dropped as a result. But there is yet another way we can look at his career.

Let's go year by year and compare how Rose did versus the league average.

Year R H HR RBI SB BB TB BA OBP SLG OPS
1963 1.8 1.4 0.5 0.8 2.4 1.3 1.3 1.1 1.1 1.0 1.0
1964 1.1 1.2 0.3 0.6 0.8 0.9 0.9 1.1 1.0 0.9 0.9
1965 2.1 1.8 0.9 1.5 1.3 1.6 1.7 1.3 1.2 1.2 1.2
1966 1.7 1.7 1.3 1.3 0.6 0.9 1.7 1.3 1.1 1.2 1.2
1967 1.6 1.5 1.2 1.6 1.9 1.3 1.5 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.2
1968 2.0 1.9 1.2 1.1 0.5 1.4 1.8 1.4 1.3 1.4 1.3
1969 2.0 1.8 1.4 1.5 1.0 1.7 1.8 1.4 1.3 1.4 1.4
1970 2.0 1.7 1.2 0.9 1.7 1.5 1.7 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.2
1971 1.6 1.7 1.3 0.9 2.1 1.5 1.6 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.2
1972 2.2 1.8 0.7 1.2 1.5 1.7 1.7 1.3 1.2 1.2 1.2
1973 2.0 1.9 0.5 1.2 1.4 1.4 1.7 1.3 1.2 1.2 1.2
1974 1.9 1.5 0.3 1.0 0.2 2.3 1.4 1.1 1.2 1.1 1.1
1975 1.9 1.7 0.7 1.4 0.0 1.9 1.6 1.2 1.2 1.2 1.2
1976 2.4 1.8 1.3 1.2 0.8 1.9 1.8 1.3 1.3 1.2 1.3
1977 1.5 1.6 0.7 1.1 1.6 1.4 1.5 1.2 1.1 1.1 1.1
1978 1.8 1.6 0.7 1.0 1.3 1.4 1.5 1.2 1.1 1.1 1.1
1979 1.4 1.6 0.3 1.0 2.0 2.1 1.4 1.2 1.3 1.1 1.2
1980 1.6 1.5 0.1 1.2 1.1 1.5 1.3 1.1 1.1 0.9 1.0
1981 1.9 1.7 0.0 0.9 0.6 1.5 1.4 1.3 1.2 1.1 1.1
1982 1.3 1.4 0.3 0.9 0.8 1.5 1.1 1.0 1.1 0.9 1.0
1983 0.9 1.0 0.0 0.8 0.6 1.2 0.8 0.9 1.0 0.7 0.8
1984 0.7 0.9 0.0 0.6 0.1 0.9 0.7 1.1 1.1 0.9 1.0
1985 1.0 0.9 0.2 0.8 0.8 1.9 0.7 1.0 1.2 0.8 1.0
1986 0.2 0.4 0.0 0.4 0.3 0.6 0.3 0.8 1.0 0.7 0.8

[Note the prior discussion of not duplicating statistics. While we list all statistics together here, they are taken in context. For example, averages (AVG, OBP, SLG, OPS) are observed together, with the understanding that OPS makes up OBP and SLG. Additionally, it is understood that HR, in particular, weights TB.]

This way, Rose is not penalized by having some bad years. We can say, for example, that he had 10 or 15 of the greatest seasons ever by isolating them in this way.

So, how does Rose's ratios from his 24 years compare to those of the other 31 greats? Not so great. He didn't have a single ratio (when compared to the other greats in that category) that was considered the best or one of the top five best. He had three in the top 20 and five ratios in the top 50. That's not many when you consider we're comparing more than a dozen statistics for all 24 of his seasons (more than 250 chances).

By comparison, Babe Ruth has 78 ratios in the one of the categorical top 50s. While Ruth may be an unfair comparison for anyone, his career was much shorter as well.

We're able to see the truth about Rose's career with some very nifty use of data. The average player makes it all come to life.

1 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nice to see a Picture and a Article on a Rose.

Every Rose has it's thorn. I sure wish the League could find a way to forgive him.

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