From: thf2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Ted Frank)
Subject: Re: Rickey Henderson v Nolan Ryan -- Stat-head call to arms!
Reply-To: thf2@midway.uchicago.edu
Organization: University of Chicago Computing Organizations
Date: Tue, 14 Apr 1992 23:16:10 GMT

In article <204924@unix.cis.pitt.edu> dtate@unix.cis.pitt.edu (David M Tate) writes:
>Now, when it comes to batting and pitching, _TB2_ is on much better footing.
>Again, allowing some margin for error (say 10%), we can conservatively 
>estimate that Nolan Ryan has been worth no more than 1.5 additional wins per
>season, on average, above what a normal pitcher would have been worth.  In
>his best year, 1977, he may have been worth as many as 4 extra wins; in his
>worst, 1985, he may have cost his team as many as 2 wins that a league-average
>pitcher would have had.
>
>(The 1.5 is extremely conservative; the true average is probably below 1.0).

But the opportunity cost of not pitching Nolan Ryan is *not*, say, 200-300
innings of "an average pitcher."  You have to measure it from the replacement
baseline.  I would guess that would be approx. a 4.5 ERA pitcher, maybe even
higher.  Over the course of his career, that's over 750 runs difference
he's made to his teams.

>Thus, over Ryan's career, he's been worth no more than 36 extra wins, tops.

I'd say at least 75.

>Now, Rickey Henderson, without even considering defense, has been worth 
>anywhere from 20 to 60 extra runs per season above league average, which
>tranlates into somewhere between 2 and 6 extra wins for his teams.  It
>averages out to about 4.5 wins per year, over 18 years.  

Eighteen years?!?!?  Eighteen years ago, Rickey was younger than Joe Nuxhall.
The boy's been in the majors for twelve and a half years, and he's getting
to that age where he's not worth 4.5 wins a year anymore.

Let's take the last eight years of Rickey, and add it to the last eight
years of Nolan.

	AB	H	2B/3B/HR	R/RBI	BB	SB
Rickey	4069	1185	209/26/149	922/466	757	567
Nolan	5947	1208	214/40/117	671/589	663	270
Total	10016	2393	423/66/266		1430	837

Total	600	143	25/4/16		96/63	86	50	238/334/373
Avg LF	624	163	28/4/16		??/62	62	??	261/331/398
(The avg AL hitter is almost the exact same as the average AL LF.)

When you add up Nolan's and Rickey's stats, the total results in a batter
that is below the average AL hitter, *and* the average AL left-fielder.
This wouldn't be true *unless* Ryan was at least as far above average
as Henderson was.

Unless you want to argue that Rickey's first four and a half years were
better than Nolan's first seventeen years, you're going to have a hard time
convincing me that over the course of their careers Rickey Henderson has
been better.

I will acknowledge that Rickey Henderson's best season is probably better
than Ryan's best season.  But you can't ignore that Ryan doesn't have to
be as far above average as an everyday player because he'll normally be
facing far more batters than Rickey will pitchers.
-- 
Ted Frank          + "He wanted to be the car rather than the thimble or the
1307 E 60 St, #109 +  hat."  -- District attorney explaining Marc Cienkowski's
U o' C Law Skool   +  murder with bow and arrow of Michael Klucznik in
Chi, IL 60637      +  Doylestown Borough, PA over a game of Monopoly.