Newsgroups: rec.sport.baseball
Subject: Re: Rickey Henderson v Nolan Ryan -- Stat-head call to arms!
From: guilford@otago.ac.nz
Date: 17 Apr 92 17:48:36 +1300
Organization: University of Otago, Dunedin, New Zealand

In article <spzjjla@lynx.unm.edu>, kbos@carina.unm.edu (Kurt M. Bose) writes:

> In article <1992Apr16.101735.2569@otago.ac.nz> guilford@otago.ac.nz writes:

>>In article <1992Apr14.231610.25520@midway.uchicago.edu>, thf2@ellis.uchicago.edu (Ted Frank) writes:

>>> I'd say at least 75.

>>If it's 75, then his record of 314-278 suggests a replacement baseline
>>of 239-353, or a .404 winning percentage.  That seems a bit low, doesn't
>>it?

> In the first place, the context of "Runs above Team", or whatever the 
> 'official' name of the stat is, does not relate at all to the arbitrary 
> 'W-L' of a pitcher.

Over a period as long as Ryan's career you might expect some small
correlation.

> Besides, I assume that your statement of the baseline being 'low' means that
> you are taking the baseline to be .500. In that case, Ryan is only 16 wins above
> baseline.  WRONG.  That's 'average'. Although I don't have stat proof (my 
> calculator is at the cleaners), I would venture to say that a 'replacement'
> pitcher (most teams' 5th or 6th starters) probably have a composite W-L record
> of at MOST .404 (not that W-L record means anything; see below.)

Pick a method, and calculate the ERA implied for a pitcher on a team
with average offense, and a winning percentage of .404 .  It's up there.

I believe that the standard sabermetric/stat-head/whatever wisdom would
be 1) most teams do have better options than to go to a pitcher who 
should be expected to have a winning percentage of .400; and 2) that
even though teams tend to do a lot of dumb things, most teams probably
are able to do better than this at the "replacement" level.  

>>The real problem with Ryan is that, besides the `72-`74 burst and the
>>`89-`91 burst, he just hasn't been particularly good.  These are
...

> Again, your analysis is based on the CREDITED W-L record listed in McMillan 
> (and everywhere else).  I would venture to say (again, my calculator is 
> drying out) that IMO, if I had the stats, they would show Ryan's run 
> support has been very
> low for his career (even given that he played in the Astrodumb.) in 
> comparison to his teammates.  Or, empirically speaking, who would you 
> rather face: Frank Tanana and his 75-45 record, or Nolan Ryan and his 
> 2000 Ks every year, 100 mph fastball (BEFORE the days of the tweaked-up 
> radar guns, no less) and opponent's
> .200 BA (yes, this is a bit of hyperbole.  But you get the pernt.)  

Frank Tanana had the better record because, as anyone can look up, he
was the better pitcher.  He allowed 392 runs to score in the 1115 innings
he pitched from `75 to `79, or 3.16 per game.  Ryan allowed 527 to score
in 1259 innings, or 3.83 per game.  I would think everyone would rather
face Ryan.  Tanana threw hard too.

> goes, 'Wins mean as much as RBIs'(tm).  We don't really beleive much in either
> of them.  Sure, there are some uses for them.  If a pitcher has 4 20-win seasons

My feeling is, that if your team takes the lead for good while you're
the pitcher, you get a win (subject to certain conditions).  Call me a 
metaphysical dreamer.  Also note that there are seasonal W-L records 
and career W-L records, and maybe an argument against using one as 
evidence may not be as meaningful as an argument against the use of the 
other.

> in a row, then he must be pretty good. (Or pitch for the '27 Yankees.)  If a 
> pitcher wins 300 games in the ML, he's proably HOF caliber.  But to look at
> Ryan's record and use the 278 losses to justify a claim that he's not
> particularly good is preposterous. 

Not only is it not preposterous, it's just obvious.  Over his career,
he hasn't been that great.  His teams have not been that bad that 314-278 
is all that great.  His record does not diverge from the records of his 
teams, as a list of current (active last year) "wins above team" career 
leaders shows:

1. Clemens      36.8
2. Gooden       29.0
3. Reuschel     26.6
4. Candalaria   24.9
5. Ryan         23.7
6. Stieb        23.2
7. Hershiser    21.4
   Higuera
9. Sutcliffe    19.6
10. Tanana      19.5

(Note: wins above team = decisions*(WP1 - WP2), where WP1 is a pitcher's
own WP and WP2 is the pitcher's team's WP in decisions in which that 
pitcher did not participate). 

Now of course wins above team, while removing the bias that plagues
winning percentage from comparing pitchers with different run support,
is biased by the quality of the other pitchers on a pitcher's staff.
Perhaps Ryan has pitched on teams with very good pitching.  But over
the course of a long career with 4 teams, it's hard to believe that
it's deviated that far from the norm....

Bill Guilford