From: mjones@fenway.aix.kingston.ibm.com (Mike Jones)
Subject: Re: Cecil signs :-( :-( :-(
Date: Mon, 11 Jan 93 23:53:17 GMT
Organization: IBM T. J. Watson Research
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL3

frisch1@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan Katz) writes:
: In article <1993Jan11.080300.18448@midway.uchicago.edu>, thf2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Ted Frank) writes:
: |> In article <1993Jan11.072048.3770@athena.mit.edu> frisch1@athena.mit.edu (Jonathan Katz) writes:
: |> >You think Fielder is barely above average!!!
: |> 
: |> Yep.  Let's see, last year, McGwire, Olerud, Palmeiro, and Thomas were
: |> better than Fielder, and Hrbek and Sorrento were about even with Fielder
    [stuff deleted]
: |> 
: |> >Better than Bonds, no.  But a star?, yes, definitely!
: |> 
: |> Madonna's an even bigger star than Cecil Fielder, but I wouldn't call
: |> her a great first baseman either.
: 
: Now, wait a minute.  It seems to me that you value Avg way too much.  There's
: just no way that Palmeiro and Olerud were better than Fielder, and to compare him
: to Hrbek and Sorrento is ridiculous: who would you rather have on your team
: next year??
: Same argument goes for Bagwell, Grace, and Kruk.

Well, actually we don't tend to value average at all...OBP is more
important. SLG is more important. OBP+SLG (OPS) is even better. Look at it
this way...Bill James' Runs Created formula predicts real run scoring better
than anything else we have handy. I've taken all the regular first basemen
from last year and figured their individual Runs Created. That gives you a
pretty fair idea what they actually contributed to their teams. That's only
half the story, though...what did they cost their teams? Average scoring for
MLB last year was about 4.13 runs/game, which makes an out "worth" .15 runs.
So I figured the number of outs each player made (AB - H + GIDP), multipled
to convert that to runs, and subtracted it from their runs created to get a
"Net Runs Created" value. Now who looks good?

Player              Age      RC   Outs  OutVal   NetRC
Frank Thomas         25  141.66    407   62.27   79.38
Mark McGwire         29  110.06    351   53.70   56.36
Fred McGriff         29  116.12    393   60.13   55.99
Will Clark           29   98.39    364   55.69   42.69
Mark Grace           29  101.76    432   66.10   35.66
Jeff Bagwell         25   98.48    443   67.78   30.70
Rafael Palmiero      28   97.25    445   68.08   29.17
John Olerud          24   78.38    343   52.48   25.90
John Kruk            32   52.76    193   29.53   23.23
Cecil Fielder        29   89.31    463   70.84   18.47
Don Mattingly        32   87.07    467   71.45   15.62
Randy Milligan       31   70.42    366   56.00   14.42
Sid Bream            32   56.68    279   42.69   13.99
Eddie Murray         37   78.53    422   64.57   13.97
Kent Hrbek           33   58.96    311   47.58   11.38
Paul Sorrento        27   63.32    348   53.24   10.08
Orlando Merced       26   53.78    311   47.58    6.20
Wally Joyner         31   72.27    437   66.86    5.41
Hal Morris           28   51.03    300   45.90    5.13
Mo Vaughn            25   46.74    280   42.84    3.90
Eric Karros          25   66.55    420   64.26    2.29
Tino Martinez        25   54.43    366   56.00   -1.57
Andres Galarraga     32   33.73    254   38.86   -5.13
Pete O'Brien         35   43.02    316   48.35   -5.33
Lee Stevens          25   30.95    247   37.79   -6.85

Looks like Cecil makes the top ten. But Olerud, and Kruk are noticably
better. Palmiero, Grace, and Bagwell are clearly better.

: Even as far as W. Clark is concerned, he is certainly of comparable worth.

Comparable worth?!? There are exactly two things Cecil does better than
Clark: hit home runs (slightly) and make outs (massively).

What's frightening is that The Big Hurt is not only at the top of the list,
he's at an age where it's likely that he's still getting better! Taking
ages into consideration, I'd expect that Bagwell and Olerud will probably
join Big Frank in the top five next year.

So, the next time you see that whopping huge monolith lurking near first
base in Tiger Stadium, just remember...."my God...it's full of outs!"

   Mike Jones  |  AIX/ESA Development  |  mjones@donald.aix.kingston.ibm.com

Gee, they're big, aren't they?
	- Pirate rookie Lloyd Waner to his brother Paul, watching the Yankees
      take batting practice before the 1927 World Series.
	  Yankees won, 4 games to 0.
From: boell@hpcc01.corp.hp.com (Donald P Boell)
Date: Fri, 8 Jan 1993 22:01:42 GMT
Subject: Re: Clark v Thomas
Organization: the HP Corporate notes server