The Modern Triple Crown
Posted: September 27th, 2009 | Filed under: Baseball | 75 Comments »
You may have seen that Stuart Miller over at my favorite newspaper this week, The New York Times, champions a suggestion that a few people here at the blog have suggested as well — namely to replace batting average with on-base percentage in the Triple Crown. It’s an idea good enough that Steve Phillips is on board*, which as you know is pretty much all you need to say in this little corner of the blogodome.
*I should point out here — especially since I’ve not always had the kindest words for Steve Phillips baseball theories — that he apparently is a Zack Greinke for Cy Young guy. These last few days of the season, unfortunately, I find myself dividing the world into pro-Zack and anti-Zack. I really shouldn’t be that way. But so it goes. Anyway, Steve Phillips is on the side of angels when it comes to Zack.
I do think it’s a good idea to replace batting average with on-base percentage for the Triple Crown. But, to be honest, I kind of wish we could create a whole new Modern Triple Crown. That way we could have an Ancient Triple Crown and a Modern Triple Crown, kind of like they have a Modern Pentathlon and a Modern Olympics and Modern Warfare 2 and so on.
The Modern Triple Crown could be so many things, with so many great current stats out there. But to me, the simplest way to do it is to take the three building block stats that most people use now anyway. They are the three slash stats that probably tell you more or less what you need to know about an offensive player, namely: batting average, on-base percentage, slugging percentage. And so, to win the Modern Triple Crown you would need to lead the league in hitting, in getting on base and in slugging. Tough trick.
The Modern Triple Crown (Let’s call it the MTC) has been pulled off eight times by by seven different players in the last 50 years. I think that you might be able to come up with the seven players if you think hard enough — or any way you might come up with six of them. I came up with six. I’ll give you a couple of minutes to think about it. Of course, it looks like Joe Mauer will be the eighth person in 50 years to pull it off — he has a pretty commanding lead in all three categories. Needless to say, none of the previous seven — heck, none of the 18 players who have pulled it off in baseball history — were catchers. Those 18 players have every one of the other seven positions covered, though.
We’ll start with ancient times — every player who pulled off the MTC before 1959 is in the Hall of Fame. But if we have to give a name to the Modern Triple Crown, we should probably call it The Hornsby. In the early days of baseball, the MTC was pretty common. Nap Lajoie won it in 1901 and 1904. Honus Wagner won it four times between 1904 and 1909. Ty Cobb won it three times between 1909 and 1917, with Tris Speaker winning a Modern Triple Crown in in 1916.
But Rogers Hornsby was the king of the MTC. He won it SEVEN TIMES from 1920 to 1928. I have been working on this rather long blog post about why I think the Big Red Machine was the greatest lineup in baseball history — the big problem is that it really is difficult on so many levels to compare players and teams from different generations. Does anyone know what would really happen if you could somehow reach back into 1925, grab Rogers Hornsby, pull him through the time continuum, and place him on a team in 2009, where he would face pitchers like Tim Lincecum and Adam Wainwright (and, to be fair, Garrett Mock and Felipe Paulino). I have to say that even though I’ve thought a lot about it, I have no idea what would happen … I don’t know if Hornsby would instantly adjust and crack line drives and be a star, if he could be completely overwhelmed, if he would start off slowly but then adjust, if he would actually be BETTER than current players. I don’t know. I guess the only fair way to measure is to see how Hornsby did when he faced Jamie Moyer and use that as our baseline.
Babe Ruth won his only MTC in 1924, and Lou Gehrig won one in 1934. Chuck Klein won one in 1933 when he was playing in the absurd hitting fairground the Baker Bowl. Chuck Klein that year was the only player in the National League with an on-base percentage above .400 (his was .422) — and his teammate Spud Davis finished second with a .395 OBP. It’s unfortunate that we don’t have Klein’s splits from 1933 yet, but we do have his splits from 1932. They look like so:
Home: .423/.464/.799, 29 homers, 97 RBIs, 92 runs.
Road: .266/.340/.481, 9 homers, 40 RBIs, 60 runs.
Uh, that seems pretty extreme to me.
Stan Musial won a Modern Triple Crown in his remarkable 1948 season — you probably already know he was one home run short of the ancient Triple Crown. He hit 39 homers — Johnny Mize and Ralph Kiner hit 40. If I remember correctly, Musial had a home run washed away because of a rainout. But nobody was even close to him in the MTC — he won the batting title by 43 points, the on-base crown by 27, and led slugging percentage by 138 points.
Then, of course, there is Ted Williams. He won the MTC five times from 1941 to 1957 — his 1957 season might be the most incredible individual season in baseball history. Here you have a 38-year-old man, a veteran of two wars, and he hit .388, his on-base percentage was .526, and he slugged .731 — all of those were the second-best totals of his career behind, of course 1941 when he was 22 years old, and he hit .400, and he was invincible. Remarkable.*
*And since I brought up Chuck Klein’s home/road split, I should probably point out Williams home/road in 1957 — it is stunning for a whole other reason.
Home: .403/.525/.670
Road: .374/.528/.790
How about a 38-year-old man slugging .790 on the road? Williams hit 26 of his 38 homers on the road.
OK, and that takes us to the last 50 years. You have your guesses ready? It should be said that when Mauer wins the MTC this year, he will become the first American Leaguer to do it in 29 years. That should give you a good hint for one of the players. Here we go:
Frank Robinson, 1966: .316/.410/.637
– He won the Ancient Triple Crown that same year. I’ve often joked about writing a book about the mid-1970s Cleveland Indians — joked because I don’t think anyone would buy it. But one fascinating part of that team was Frank Robinson as player/manager.
Carl Yastrzemski, 1967: .326/.418/.622
– He won the Ancient Triple Crown, of course, the last guy to do it. I’ve sometimes wondered: What happens if Yaz retires after his 30-year season. He was an absolutely brilliant player until age 30 — three batting titles, five on-base percentage titles, three slugging titles, twice led the league in hits, three times in doubles, once in homers, twice in runs scored, one in RBIs, twice in walks, four times in OPS+. And, of course, he won the Triple Crown and had one of the greatest stretches in baseball history at the end of the 1967 season. He was, in my view, the best player in the league in the 1960s — though you could make a case for Kaline or Killebrew or the aging Mickey Mantle. At that point, I think you rank him up there with Clemente, not too far behind Frank Robinson and Hank Aaron.
But from 31 on, Yaz hit .275/.370/.430, and he only once hit more than 21 homers in a season, he only once hit 30 doubles, he only once hit .300 (.301 to be exact). These were low-scoring times, true, and he still walked a lot which helped his value. But he clearly was not the same player after age 30. And yet, because he stayed around he got his 3,000th hit, his 450th homer, his 1800th run scored and RBI.
And that’s my question: Did Yaz secure his place in the Hall of Fame and baseball history by hitting those career landmarks with a whole bunch of pretty good seasons after age 30? Or is he mostly in the Hall of Fame because of the brilliant young player he was? I know this is basically just a remodeled version of the longevity vs. peak question that people have been asking about the Hall of Fame for a long time. But it’s the Hall of Fame question I think about all the time.
The next MTC winner is a bit of a shocker.
Fred Lynn, 1979: .333/.423/.637
– I was on Boston radio last week for The Machine, of course, and I was asked if Fred Lynn would be in the Hall of Fame had he spent his entire career in Boston. I told them that I think Fred Lynn has a pretty decent Hall of Fame case NOW — if he had stayed even five more years in Boston, I think he would have been a first-ballot Hall of Famer. In his time in Boston, he hit .308/.383/.520 and won four Gold Gloves in center field. He didn’t need too many more seasons like that to be a Hall of Famer.
Was Lynn’s 1979 better than Jim Rice’s famous 1978 season? Rice played 16 more games in 1978, so that really helps his case. Rice has more win shares, 36-34. Sixteen games is a big difference. But Lynn had a better batting average, much better on-base percentage and better slugging percentage. Lynn played centerfield, while Rice played left (and actually played DH 49 games in ‘78). Whether it was better than Rice’s season or not, Lynn probably deserved the MVP award, which would have been his second (he didn’t come close to winning the MVP — he finished fourth). And he deserved to have 1979 remembered as one of the all-time great seasons. And those two things, too, might have made a difference in his Hall of Fame case.
George Brett, 1980: .390/.454/.664
– I sometimes wonder if I should revisit my George Brett in 1980 book idea.
From there there was a 19-year gap between MTC winners … and the gap would have been even longer except for the erecting of a place called Coors Field and a laboratory in California.
Larry Walker, 1999: .379/.458/.710
Todd Helton, 2000: .372/.463/.698
– I really do think it will be fascinating to see how the Hall of Fame voters respond to Larry Walker and Todd Helton. Walker, for his part, was a brilliant player before he came to Colorado. His 1994 season in Montreal — when he hit .322/.394/.587 in the strike-shortened season — was about as good as anything he did in Colorado. He only played in 127 games in 1999, which is part of the reason why he finished TENTH in the MVP voting.
Helton is a tougher case in some ways — he has never played for any team but Colorado and never played in any home park but Coors Field. His home road split is outrageous. He’s hitting .361 and slugging .642 at home. And he’s hitting .294 and slugging .489 on the road. … But those road numbers are pretty good (his road on-base percentage is .395) and at the end of the day a player who hits .328 with walks and power belongs in the Hall of Fame, right? He has had a pretty nice comeback year — even if his 30 homer days seem to be over — and he has a few years left to tack on some Yaz counting stats. I think he will get in.
Barry Bonds, 2002: .370/.582/.799
Barry Bonds, 2004: .362/.609/.812
– A Seinfeld thought: Will it get to the point that Barry Bonds cartoon numbers — a .609 on-base percentage, I mean, seriously — simply become like mirages in the desert. Years from now, you’re looking through the record books, wondering who has the best on-base percentage in a single season, and you see that .609, and you go: “Oh my gosh, who was THAT? Who could possibly have gotten on base 61 percent of the time?” And then you see it’s Barry Bonds and you go: “Oh. Never mind.” And it’s like you never saw the number in the first place.
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Holy shit.
I just looked at Barry Bonds’ numbers from 2004. A .609 OBP, and a 1.422 OPS.
My brain just exploded.
Circle me Joe? Really?
Never mind. Serves me right anyway.
Say what you will about Helton, he’s consistently put up an OBP above .400, even when he’s been hurt, his whole career. Coors certainly helps, but his career OPS+ is still 140, he’s got over 2,000 hits, over 500 doubles, and over 300 home runs. Perhaps most telling, he’s walked about 250 more times than he’s struck out in his career. Not a lot of players can say that. It will be interesting to see what the HOF voters think of him, because he’s such a stat-geek freindly player in one way (OBP, BB, power that shows up in stats other than HR) but he’s so non-stat-geek friendly in another (A first baseman at Coors for his whole career). I would say he belongs, but as a Rockies fan, I’m biased.
As a baseball fan who grew up in the 70’s I have to say that I tend to think of Yaz as an accumulator & star rather than a superstar in larger part because his numbers weren’t eye-popping in the 60’s. . . . .until you realize that nobody’s numbers were great and he was MUCH better than the league at that time.
It will be interesting to see how the Steroids Era (& it will be capitalized) plays out over time. I think it will fade into the background a little but one of the things that will keep it alive are the inhuman numbers that Bonds put up.
Fascinating, informative, and hilarious at the same time. Especially those last lines about Barry Bonds.
You know, I sorta get the feeling that if Bonds hadn’t used steroids everyone would be willing to look the other way, and this never would have been played up by the media. But since he put up such cartoonish numbers and he was a Grade A Jerk (especially to the media), they just won’t do it.
PLEASE write the George Brett 1980 book. Being born in 1972 that’s pretty much my first baseball memory (like your Big Red Machine experience). I got to meet him promoting a board game of some sort at a Wheelers in Grand Island, NE on my birthday. Highlight of my year! That guy is my hero, let me know more about a time I can’t clearly remember.
Thanks, Joe.
That Jamie Moyer line totally got me.
Funny, I have always thought that, over time, people would come be less outraged by steroids, and accept that they were just part of the game in this era. What is probably going on here is that it is very easy to think that general opinion will converge to one’s own!
So, do you have to have been a Greinke fan prior to 2006 to be in the pro-Zack camp?
I’ll be here all week. Try the veal!
On a more serious note, am I missing something, or is the Royals handling of Greinke back during the 2006 season simply not getting much play? (This could be out of respect to Greinke, who I’m sure doesn’t want his old troubles rebroadcast around the league all over again, but if it is, I have to say I’m astonished, given that ‘troubled player makes good’ is one of the most common tropes in any sportswriter’s arsenal.)
I mean, it doesn’t take much hope to imagine that Franisco Liriano, despite blowing out his arm in 2006 and not yet showing much indication of getting back to where he was that year, *might* put something together and recapture that old magic for a while, anyway. Liriano will eat out on the hopes of MLB GMs for years before he finally leaves the game for good.
Greinke is something else — he had potential, sure, but nothing like significant success at the big-league level. Then he’s seemingly out of the game. It wouldn’t have taken much for the Royals to have considered this, to paraphrase Michael Lewis’s phrase from ‘Moneyball’, “a problem we can’t afford to solve.” They did, though, and it certainly looks like they’ve found an ace for their trouble.
Have I just missed this?
It does make you realize just how hard it is to cop the Triple Crown (Ancient version) when you consider that nobody has won it in 42 freaking years.
But, in another way, it goes a long way toward helping Joe with his biggest brain-trip: how to compare ancient players to the modern star. And the Triple Crown is as good an indicator as any: in the old days, it was simply easier for a great player to completely dominate the league. Why?
The competition simply wasn’t as strong. It doesn’t take a Rhodes Scholar to imagine how dominant Joe Mauer would be if he didn’t have to face any Black, Latin, or Japanese players. Heck, guys like Honus Wagner and Lajoie didn’t even have to face Californians. Ty Cobb said in his bio that when he came into the AL, he was practically the only guy from south of the Mason-Dixon line! (in fact, when Sholeless Joe came into the league, Cobb made a rare friend, because they were about the only Southerners in the game.)
So yeah; in the past 42 years we’ve seen the primes of Johnny Bench, Mike Schmidt, Joe Morgan, George Brett, Frank Thomas, Barry Bonds, and Albert Pujols, and yet nobody has come even within striking distance to a TC.
Since I’m a HUGE fan of MLB history, and love reading about the old days, I hate to say this, but it’s true: the modern ballplayers are the best players of all-time.
Your last line about Bonds makes me so )#$(&*%ing angry (not because of you, but because I think you’re right). People can talk about Pete Rose being treated unfairly by baseball, but what has happened (being blackballed, and yes, he was) and what WILL happen to Bonds is disgraceful. He’s become the black sheep of an era that stretches at least 20 years. AT LEAST. And the sad thing is, he’s most likely the best baseball player anyone my age (I’m 25) has seen. All because he was a dick to reporters. God this makes me mad.
Sure, I’m biased, I’ve been the biggest Bonds fan since I was 8, but anyone who thinks he’s been treated fairly by MLB and the media is kidding themselves. Most amazing player since Mays.
Oh, and that’s “are” kidding themselves, not is. Stupid error by me.
[Chuck Klein Home/Road splits] Uh, that seems pretty extreme to me.
So apparently there was an Andres Galarraga Sr. before there was an Andres Galarraga…
I can’t speak about Hornsby, but I would say that Cobb, could move into whatever period he wanted and wreak havoc. Say what you want about his personal life but he is the hitter in my terms.
@ #12:
>>>Heck, guys like Honus Wagner and Lajoie didn’t even have to face Californians.>>>
>>>Ty Cobb said in his bio that when he came into the AL, he was practically the only guy from south of the Mason-Dixon line!>>>
Neither of those statements are true at all.
To Josh @ #14, “is kidding” is correct.
“Anyone” is singular and takes the singular form of the verb.
“Themselves” is incorrect; replace it with “himself”.
Here endeth the lesson. Carry on.
I’m not sold on the modern triple crown, primarily because it is rate driven. The original, you’ll note, includes a rate state and two counting stats – I’m not convinced that’s the right balance, but showing up for work ought to count for something.
Growing up in New England bred into me a rather non objective evaluation of Yastrzemski (where “rz after t” precedes “i before e” in the elementary school curriculum), but looking back I’ve no idea what to make of the player, or what was going on with the Redsox in the mid 70s
1975. Yaz at 1B, Rice in LF, Cooper at DH.
1976. Yaz at 1B, Rice in LF, Cooper at DH.
1977. Scott at 1B, Yaz in LF, Rice at DH. OK, I can kind of see how that might happen, but weird. Does it make any sense for a left fielder in Fenway to win a gold glove? At the age of 37?
Granted, some of this is Don Zimmer….
@17
I should have said very few Californians. In the early 1900’s, the vast majority of the player pool came from the Eastern seaboard, with a decent sprinkling from the other states that made up the “Union” during the Civil War. VERY few players came from out West, and it stayed that way for quite awhile, since the Pacific Coast League was basically considered a “major league”-type operation, and payed as well as MLB.
As far as Southerners in the bigs, read Ty’s book. He moans about for chapters, being a complete outsider, being made fun of because of the way he talked, being on a team made up of almost all East-Coast Irishmen, blah, blah.
Bill James had said that as late as 1905, guys were being plucked OUT OF THE STANDS to come play an MLB game. We’re talking about a VERY limited talent pool, and in that environment, you can see why a guy with Wagner’s skills was basically the league MVP for every year of the 1900-1910 decade. I would compare his dominance to how Pujols would hit if he were playing against Triple-A guys.
The Bonds fan is right; he’s the best player to have ever played the sport (and trust me, I’m a Babe Ruth fanatic).
I’m not convinced that’s the right balance, but showing up for work ought to count for something.
…which is why you have to 502 PA to qualify. There’s some who might argue that number is too low, but it covers the fact that a hitter who plays every inning (especially one low in the order) still might not have the opportunity to bat four times a game thanks to his teammate’s failings.
Well, — and I only bring this up and launch into a digression because it makes for a neat topic — it would also cover the fact that an 8 or 9 hitter can only get two PA in a home game his team wins despite the opposing pitcher only allowing one or two baserunners. (Obviously, you cannot win any home nine-inning game unless your #7 hitter has a third PA, and all nine spots in the batting order must get 3 PA in any road game.)
It’s only happened once that I can find, however, so it’s trivial; Sandy Koufax only had 2 PA in his perfect game against against the Cubs in 1965. That was the famous game Bob Hendley lost 1-0 despite only allowing two baserunners.
No other perfect game won by the home team has come this close, and scanning the list of “close to perfection” games doesn’t reveal any either. (Indeed, the only other time I can find where a losing pitcher has been close to perfect was on June 13, 1905, when Three-Finger Brown carried a no-hitter into the ninth against Christy Mathewson, who did throw a no-hitter and won 1-0. I don’t have a box score for that one, but it doesn’t really matter for the purpose of this digression because due to the game situation both teams were obliged to bat in the ninth.)
So Sandy Koufax may be the only player in MLB history to play an entire nine-inning game without getting three plate appearances. Wild, huh?
Edit: I should say “the only other time I can find where a losing pitcher has been close to perfect in a nine-inning game…”
Wouldn’t want to disrespect ol’ Harvey Haddix there.
The Brett ‘80 book is a great idea of course, but one I’d like to see is on the 1993 MLB season. Think about it. It was the last year before Everything Changed. Last year of two-division play, last year before money completely took over the game once and for all. (And by that I mean the Blue Jays were the best team.)
Great as Toronto was that year, you had the NL champs, the Phillies, laden with characters, goofballs, oddballs and flat-out weirdos. But the other thing I’ll always remember about ‘93 was the Giants, who won like 103 games and lost out to the Braves in the NL West. That was Bonds’ first year in San Fran (and he had an amazing season), the media was actually on his side.
The next year came the strike, the lockout, the crushing of the Expos and a whole bunch of bad stuff. I know 1994 was an interesting MLB season itself, but to me, 1993 is the greatest, most overlooked season ever in MLB…
Joe–why don’t you write a book about the Red Sox ending the Curse in 2004? For as big a deal as that was, there really didn’t seem to be much attention given to it.
In all seriousness, a book on George Brett would be fantastic. Really, there are about 50 former major leaguers I’d like to read a Poz book about…can’t you get on the cloning bandwagon and speed up your writing process?
I’d like to see a Posnanski book on the 1899 Cleveland Spiders.
Garret–not saying you’re wrong, but isn’t it time someone tried to quantify the pool of talent available, taking into consideration the population, the barriers against blacks and others, the number of minor leagues teams, the competition from other sports, and anything else I may have missed? What you’re saying makes the case for some numbers to be run, but it isn’t the answer to the question, it’s just the question.
Or has someone already done a study of this?
Three things:
(1) I love the line about Hornsby facing Moyer. Still laughing over it
(2) You absolutely must do a book about George Brett
(3) I am surprised the 2004 Giants did so good having Barry Bonds clog up the bases with his cranky knees at a 609 rate
I would stand in line to read your George Brett in 1980 book
A mainstream publication like the NY Times has writers discussing OBP replacing AVG in the Holy Trinity of batting statistics?
Quick old men, stop this before George Sisler rolls over in his grave!
The ATC combines rate states and counting stats, so right or wrong, the MTC ought to as well. Some version of Runs Created (or Base Runs) is the obvious candidate to replace RBI. HR is a little more tricky. Slugging might work ok, and it still leaves one counting stat, but is there a better counting stat to measure power? Maybe the counting version of ISO-P (basically, extra bases beyond single, so double counts as 1, triple counts as 2, HR counts as 3).
I prefer the Modern Crown proposed in the NYT yesterday: OBP/HR/RBI
The problem with Joe’s variation is that it might allow a player to miss, I don’t know, a month of the season and still run away with the triple crown. Hypothetically.
“Does anyone know what would really happen if you could somehow reach back into 1925, grab Rogers Hornsby, pull him through the time continuum, and place him on a team in 2009″
A racial incident.
32: Tom – lol. That goes for Cobb too.
23: Lazy Perfectionist – I think that Lupica wrote a book about 1993 as the last real pennant race. But I’d buy a book about that season written now knowing what we know today and didn’t know then.
But yeah, I love that Branch Rickey was pretty much thinking the way we all do way back in the 1940’s-1950’s, yet people still reject statistical analysis. I think Branch Rickey had a good handle on building a baseball team.
I just have to cast my vote as well for the 1980 George Brett book. I would pre-order that thing the second it was put on amazon.
I saw that Tim Kurkijan was promoting Zack for the Cy Young yesterday on ESPN. I feel more and more confident he is going to win. Of course I felt the same confidence in April about the Royals finishing the season at or above .500.
so i was on cnnsi.com and had a look at their baseball cover story. shouldn’t Yankees fans be concerned that their team is showering themselves in champagne after a DIVISIONAL title. aren’t they the YANKEES?
I’ve often joked about writing a book about the mid-1970s Cleveland Indians — joked because I don’t think anyone would buy it. But one fascinating part of that team was Frank Robinson as player/manager.
I’d love to read that book. I was about 10 when Robinson’s diary of his first year as Indians player-manager was published — it was probably no Ball Four, but I didn’t know what that was. Frank’s book was the first “inside the locker room” account I’d ever read, so I remember that team fondly.
What little I remember — Eckersley and Rick Manning were going to be stars, Boog Powell was a legendarily great guy, and he could not rid himself of the Perry brothers quick enough.
Funny line about Hornsby vs Moyer, took me a moment to catch it.
The one thing I have against trying to come up with a “new” triple crown is that the old one isn’t really an official award. It’s just an example of the habit we have of cherry-picking statistics in order to present a particular case for or against a player.
As for how players from different eras would fare today… if they were simply plucked, as-is, from those times and placed into today’s major league, I doubt that they’d fare well at all. But assuming we allowed them to grow up and develop their skills in today’s environment, I suspect that they’d be as great today as they were then. Guys like Cobb were exceptionally skilled and driven to excel in the game.
Which makes me think that guys like Cobb would’ve used steroids the moment that they learned about them. But I guess that’s a discussion for another day.
I’ll second (or third, or n-th) the idea that there should be a counting stat in here. I think you should reward players for being on the field a lot. Setting some threshold isn’t enough—500 PA is great, but 600 PA is a lot better. That is the one thing against Mauer this year. Yes he’s about to win the Poz triple crown, but his playing time has really limited his value. His being a catcher makes up for that, so he’s still awesome and the MVP. You just can’t ignore the fact he missed April.
My triple crown stats would be OBP, HR, and R. I realize runs are still team-dependent, but it’s better than RBI. And I can explain those three stats to someone new to baseball in less than a minute. And I like the fact that it gives Pujols the NL triple crown this year. He has been, unquestionably, the best hitter in the NL this year.
Better get this MVP changed over to MTC in a hutty if the NYTimes is going to be in your corner. Unless the government chooses to prop up institutions like the Times, that “grey lady” may be six feet under soon.
I think a book, or even a thick-ish pamphlet, on the 1994 Expos would be great, Joe.
I’ve always been fascinated with that team.
Also, how about a blog about the Colorado Rockies of this year? I don’t know anything about them, really. That’s why I suggest it. They always seem to kind of sneak up.
The MTC is pretty good, but I’d still like to keep HR in there for two reasons: it’s a significantly different skill from AVG, and it’s a counting number.
The trick of the Olde Tyme TC is the trade-off between contact and power. You want the TC winner to straddle both skills, but a guy hitting .372 with a ton of 2b can still win the SLG title over guys that are trading AVG for HR.
I really need to have counting stats in there too, because I enjoy the tension between guys that show up and play every day vs the hot hand over limited time approach. When you just want to know How Many, everybody stands a chance and there are different roads to reach the same destination.
I think the Bonds numbers will be remembered in a context that completely deflates them. You know how a lot of people look at old Coors numbers and discount the performances too much? (“Another .370 hitter? No way, it’s all park. Those guys were just lucky to play there.”) It’ll be like that, and the baby (Bonds’ whole career before 2000) will go out with the steroid tinged bathwater.
Oh, and I think I’d like to see a lot more George Brett anecdotes in print. I understand that not all of his, um, salty phrases might make the jump to print on some of the more family-oriented outlets. But the guy is really funny.
Re Cobb and Southerners in MLB
1900 US census: 77M, 67M defined as white
Of which, the Southern states (AL, AR, FL, GA, LA, MS, NC, SC, TN, TX, VA): 19.9M, 11.9M white (18% of the white pop)
From B-R, using the birthplace of only those (incl pitchers) with plate appearances: 404 total players in 1905, Cobb’s rookie year
Of which 24 or 6% were from the South.
It would appear that when Cobb came to the majors, “the South” was under-represented.
The 1905 Tigers:
CT – 1
GA – 1
IL – 3
IN – 2
KS – 1
MA – 2
MI – 2
MN – 1
MO – 2
NE – 1
PA – 5
OH – 2
WI – 1
plus 2 born in Canada, 1 in Norway, and 1 unk.
Cobb was the only Southerner on the team. 10% were foreign born. One-third were from the Northeast, and over half were from the Midwest.
In 1900 the pop of CA was 1.5M, 1.4M white (2% of US white pop). In 1905 there were 6 MLB players who had been born in CA, 1.5% of major league players.
How about a book on the 1987 pennant races? The Tigers and Jays played seven times in the last three series, all games were decided by 1 run, and the division wasn’t decided until game 162. There were probably other exciting division races too.
Joe, when you’re done promoting the BRM book will you have a poll to decide your next book topic?
The Moyer line slayed me.
Joe,
To your question about how Rogers Hornsby would do playing in today’s major leagues, it’s worth noting that in every single athletic competition in which you can compare eras – things like track and field and swimming – today’s athletes are noticeably and dramatically better. If Jesse Owens were to race against Usain Bolt, or Johnny Weismuller were to take on Michael Phelps – well, it wouldn’t go well for the champions of yore – even if Tarzan were allowed one of those fancy new swimsuits. For a less scientific example, when you watch highlights of, say, the 1972 Knicks on ESPN Classic, you just KNOW that even the Grizzlies would run them over. I can’t think of any reasons it would be different for baseball.
The thing about Klein, if I recall correctly, is that he compiled his numbers in Moyers’ rookie year. I think Jayme got better with age.
I remember a website–unfortunately I forget where exactly it was–that suggested a Sabermetric Quadruple Crown for players who led the league in OBP, SLG, times on base and total bases. That seems to me like the best combination of rate and counting stats for this sort of thing.
How would Hornsby do against modern pitchers? Well if you believe in the Transitive Property of Sports (which I don’t, but it’s fun) then it seems likely that Hornsby would do very well.
Barry Bonds crushed most modern pitchers. But Bonds couldn’t hit Dennis Martinez very well– .627 OPS in 100 PA. But Rusty Staub put up a 988 OPS against Dennis Martinez.
Staub couldn’t hit old-timer Warren Spahn, only managing a 579 OPS against him. But old-timer Stan Musial could hit Spahn: 983 OPS in 151 plate appearances.
Musial faced Paul Derringer, who faced Rogers Hornsby. I can’t find the head-to-head records of those matchups, but the Transitive Property of Sports shows that Stan Musial would dominate against today’s pitchers.
We just need to ask Paul Derringer how Hornsby stacked up against Musial.
The calibre of the competition has obviously improved since the early days when (conventional) triple crowns were more common, but there’s also the simple matter of there being more competition now. Instead of eight teams in each league, there are now 14 in the AL and 16 in the NL (and the AL teams have DHs, which means one more lineup spot potentially/likely taken up by someone who will qualify for the batting title per team.)
Quite simply put, no matter how good you are, you’re more likely to win when you’re one of roughly 60 people eligible to do so than when you’re one of about 120.
As mentioned, the 120 other guys Pujols, Bonds, A-Rod et al. face are all guys for whom being the best they can at baseball is their primary goal. There aren’t exactly dozens of guys who get by on skill for six months, then go back to working on farms or what have you for the rest of the year.
So yeah, kudos to anyone who can dominate the game these days.
Whenever someone asks if player A from generation 1 would stack up now, I always notice they forget an assumption: player A would now have the modern methods of training and preparation accessable to modern players. Sure maybe Babe Ruth, in his fat 1920’s way, would get destroyed by 95 MPH fastballs w/ movement. Or, he could adapt, and crush the ball now like in the 20’s.
Joe-
Whatever else you do, please write that George Brett in 1980 book. My kids believe me but they just don’t get it. You could help so many fathers teach thier kids about what it was like when the Royals mattered, and the best player played in powder blue.
As for Jamie Moyer, Wade Boggs had a .941 OPS against Moyer.
Boggs put up an even better OPS against Doyle Alexander: 1.010.
Pete Rose had a .955 OPS against Alexander, but that wasn’t as good as Rose’s 1.389 OPS against Warren Spahn.
So: Pete Rose did better against Warren Spahn than he did against Doyle Alexander. But Wade Boggs was better against Doyle Alexander than he was against Jamie Moyer.
Therefore, Jamie Moyer is better than Warren Spahn.
Julio Franco had a .924 OPS against Moyer. But Franco was 0-17 lifetime against Dan Quisenberry.
Which proves that Quisenberry was WAY better than Warren Spahn.
Modern triple crown should be somewhat in the form of the old triple crown, in other words: one percentage and 2 counting stats (where the 2 counting stats often corelate).
I propose OBP, TB and Runs Scored.
OFF TOPIC POZ QUESTION: Hey guys, I remember a post Poz did a ways back about the manager’s quote (thinking it was Gardy or Hillman) that made no sense. I think it was about hitting some punch-and-judy type high in the order. It was one of the funniest things I’ve read in a while because the blogger (I’m assuming it was Poz) broke down everything the manager said… and it made no sense. I’ve tried everything I can to find that column. Can anyone help me?
Gehrig lost the 1934 MVP to Mickey Cochrane – and not in Cochranes best season. When I started looking through my first Baseball Encyclopedia as a teenager, this was one of the MVP’s which made me scratch my head.
“I guess the only fair way to measure is to see how Hornsby did when he faced Jamie Moyer and use that as our baseline.”
You would get a much larger sample size by adding Julio Franco’s PAs against Alexander, Mays, Gomez, etc.
In Stark’s article today on ESPN, he has a blurb talking about Joe Mauer winning the “Sabermetric Triple Crown” and even lists those that have accomplished it. No nod to Joe though . . . . . . disappointing.
“I propose OBP, TB and Runs Scored.”
I had considered a similar proposal, but instead I offer a very simple counter argument:
http://www.baseball-reference.com/players/b/bondsba01-bat.shtml
Bonds only once led the league in runs, once in rbi, and once in total bases – all of those in 92/93. His obscene seasons this decade aren’t even a blip on the map… too many walks.
FWIW: Bill Nowlin wrote an almost identical article last year in the SABR Research Journal. It was titled ‘The OBP Triple Crown.’
Lynn’s 79 season was awesome. When you think he lead in the three slash stats plus was a gold glove center fielder. He should have won the MVP.
Baylor was a horrible choice.
I kind of like the idea of a “Double” Crown of ops+ and Runs Created. This way you don’t get the players from the great hitting parks.
Bonds, 90,91,92,9301,02,04
Pujols: 08,09
I kind of forgot about Derek Lee’s 05 but he did it as well.
The MTC is far superior to the ATC, but any TC should in some sense measure raw power, and by using SLG as a proxy the MTC falls short. The trouble is that SLG is “propped up” to some degree by BA. (Does Ichiro (SLG .464) really have more power than Papi (.459)?) ISO (SLG-BA) is better, but unfortunately Joe Mauer (ISO .231) would lose his MTC on the basis of ISO to Teix (.274), Morales (.258), Cruz (.267), Bay (.277), C Pena (.310) and others.
No player who has lead all of MLB in OBP/Total Bases/Runs Scored has *ever* won the MVP award!
Yeah, it’s sort of a trick: Williams in 1942 (finished second to Gordon), and the other 5 are all named Ruth (1919, 1921, 1923, 1924, 1926 – sheesh!).
It’s better with RBI instead of runs. Foxx (1938), Yastrzemski (1967), and Schmidt (1981) win, and only Gehrig (1934) and Williams (1942) get rooked – Wagner (1908) and Cobb(1909) are too early for the Chalmers.
I like JohnQ’s point though – if we’re going to be modern, we need a context adjustment.
Back in Ruth’s time, the MVP (called the League Award) could only be awarded to a particular player once per lifetime. This award ran from 1922 to 1929. 1922 was the year Ruth was suspended for the first two months of the season; he still had arguably the best year, but it was also the year the Browns finished only 1 game behind the Yanks and Sisler hit over .400, so Sisler won the award.
Ruth won it in ‘23. Never again, per the rules.
The “modern” MVP award began in 1931, when of course Ruth was past his prime. The first four winners were named Grove, Foxx, Foxx, and Cochrane.
Under “modern” MVP rules, Ruth of course would have won in all the listed seasons in @64, and more (certainly 1920, 1927, and 1928, I would think).
Hi. I wrote the NY Times article.
I led off with the OBP Triple Crown because I think it’s what the public can follow easily. But I think the best measure as I wrote at the end (though the edit truncated my point a bit), is that the Quadruple Crown: OBP, Total Bases Plus (including walks, steals and caught stealing, maybe should even have GIDP), and RBIs and Runs.
Though to make it a Triple Crown I could live with either just RBI or RBI plus Runs scored (as I mention in the article the latter leads to way more instances because you could finish second in one or both). As many posters here said, you can’t just do 3 percentages and Mauer is the perfect example of why.
@65 – nice catch; once upon a time I knew about the League awards, but I had since forgotten.
@66 – I had considered TB+, but rejected it on the notion that nobody would be happy with it. It’s too complicated, your traditionalists aren’t going to be happy that a stolen base is as “good” as a hit, and the technicians aren’t going to be happy with the relative weights of stolen bases and caught stealing.
@11 – David – I completely agree with you. As a therapist, I think it would be fabulous to give a little bit of credit to the Royals for acknowledging the mental health issue and then demonstrating that someone can overcome it and succeed. Definitely needs more play.
If he played for the Yankees, there would probably be lobbying for it to be changed to Zack Greinke Syndrome.
But I also agree – if he is wishing it to remain private, then that’s all good.
(if you do a search for greinke and anxiety, there are a few articles but not many.)
Count me as another one who would love to see a book on the Indians of the 1970’s. There are some nice themes to work with…among them: Baseball First Black Manager, Radio Host Pete Franklin and the I Hate the Yankees hankie, good guys Buddy Bell and Duane Kuiper, heartthrob of the the city Rick Manning, the awful Municipal Stadium, the Spitter and Gaylord Perry, the lone drummer in the back row of the bleachers, Sugar Bear Blanks, Choo Choo Charlie….heck, I should write the book! Title is “the Mistake by the Lake”…it’s all coming together.
Bonds is a Hall of Famer and one of the best hitters ever but it really distresses me to have him called the best ever because of numbers that were generated by the combination of PEDs and a bad offense around him and idiot managers who decided that they should walk him every time up.
Look at his pre-PEDs numbers to get a better idea of just how great he was. Very great indeed but not the best ever. My opinion on this is unlikely to ever change. Only evidence that he didn’t use could make that happen and frankly the size of his head alone is enough for me. Might not be good enough for the court (though it should be) but it is for me.
>>>>Heck, guys like Honus Wagner and Lajoie didn’t even have to face Californians.
He wasn’t born in CA but Walter Johnson still holds the California Interscholastic Federation record for strikeouts by a pitcher in a high school game with 27 in 1905 for Fullerton High School in a 15-inning 0-0 tie with Santa Ana High.
You have to push buttons, don’t you. You compare Walker’s strike shortened Montreal season to his MTC season in Colorado. Outside Colorado, Walker peaked hit .322/.394/.587. In Colorado, Larry Walker batted more than 40 points higher than .322 three times (with several other beats), OBP 50 points or more higher than .394 five times (with nine times over .400), and slugged more than 40 points better than .587 four times. Career in Coors: .382/.462/.710, OPS of 1.172. In Montreal, his OPS was .890. He only finished tenth for MVP in his MTC year in large part because baseball (aside from Wrongolsby, who had to cover the team) had wised up to how extreme Coors Field was affecting records.
I’ll consider Helton for MVP. But Walker on the road had an OPS of .865, more than 200 points more than at home. Those aren’t MVP level numbers except for middle infielders.
Mr. Posnanski:
An early edition of the told “Total Baseball” by Pete Palmer had a CD-rom that had splits for some players, including Klein. Here are his home AVG-OBP-SLG for that year
.467 .516 .789
On the road, they were
.280 .338 .436
Cyril Morong, Ph. D.
Associate Professor
of Economics
San Antonio College
The “ancient” triple crown remains as the present triple crown.
It is what it is. We can enjoy all the other stats as they are.
I won’t get into an argument about Barry Bonds’ hitting — I can’t stand him and I’m just not very interested in discussing him.
However, I must rise to the bait tossed out by the commenter who called Bonds the best PLAYER ever.
Ruth was the greatest slugger of his and many other eras — and before that was one of the game’s top pitchers.
You just can’t ignore that remarkable combination, and it’s why I’ll always maintain that Ruth was the greatest player ever.