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    Wednesday, December 23, 2020

    The Disappearance of the Hall of Fame's Below-Median Starters, Part 2: Re-evaluating Andy Pettitte, Mark Buehrle, and Tim Hudson

    The other day, Baseball-Reference founder Sean Forman wrote a little bit about his Hall of Fame ballot on Twitter. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the guy who founded the biggest baseball stats website has some interesting thoughts about stats and the Hall of Fame!

    But there was one particular thought that jumped out at me. After discussing why he thought all of Andy Pettitte, Tim Hudson, and Mark Buehrle were worthy of the Hall of Fame, he noted (brackets expanding on abbreviations):

    “Just a thought here, but look at the P[itcher]s & H[itter]s inducted s[ince] 2000. 9 SPs, 42 hitters, 6 RPs. That's 26% of player inductions are Ps and just 9 SPs. We divide WAR up 40% pitching and 60% defense and batting which suggests 22 pitchers out of 57.”

    I have argued in the past that Hall voters have gotten too stingy when it comes to inducting starting pitchers, but this still a little shocking to see written out, especially when tied to player value like that. For those who don’t want to do the math themselves, 9 starters since 2000 means that just 16% of inductees in that time have been starting pitchers. When you work that out, we’re seeing over four and a half position players being inducted for each starting pitcher, and two relievers for every three starters.

    Regardless of what you think about the 60%-40% split for WAR that Forman mentions and how accurate a division of value it is, I don’t know if anyone would argue that the split that we’re actually seeing reflects how we should divide up value. And it’s not hard to see how these results could have been even more lopsided, given that the brunt of the backlash against steroid users has come largely at the cost of hitters (fairly or not). Just since 2000, off the top of my head, we’ve seen Mark McGwire, Rafael Palmeiro, Barry Bonds, Sammy Sosa, Gary Sheffield, and Manny Ramirez drop of the ballot or completely stall out. On the pitching side, there’s basically just Roger Clemens.* It’s really not difficult to imagine a world where we’re looking at a 48-16 split in the position players’ favor (a 75%-25% split) since 2000.

    Monday, December 14, 2020

    More Sporcle Trivia: Retired Numbers on Multiple Teams

    As a short coda to the Retired Number Quiz series, I have one more retired numbers game up over at Sporcle: Can you name the players with retired numbers on multiple teams? Since I’m not the first to tackle that idea, I also added my own twist to the proceedings, in that you also have to guess the teams for each respective player. In total, there are thirteen honorees (eleven primary-players and two managers) and twenty-eight teams (two honorees have retired numbers on three teams) to guess.

    If you’re interested, I’ll also be discussing some possible future additions to the list here, since I just wrapped up writing about the topic and it’s on my mind. But it will be below the break, to keep from spoiling the quiz for anyone (although in this case, I guess the spoilers would come from eliminating possible options).


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    Wednesday, December 9, 2020

    Retired Number Quiz Series: The National League West

    We finally made it to the sixth and final entry in the Retired Number Quiz Series, the NL West. As I mentioned last time, the Dodgers and Giants prevent this from being the youngest overall division, but it’s a close second behind the AL West, and two of their expansion teams only date back to the 1990s. And that has a notable effect on their results. For instance, only four teams have players on their top-six lists who failed to reach at least 20 WAR while with the team: the Marlins, and the three NL West expansion teams.

    Of course, as weak as some of those choices are, I think the quiz isn’t as hard as some of the others, since it’s still overwhelmingly modern (even the Giants and Dodgers skew relatively recent, for teams as old as they are); there aren’t any Tommy Bridges or Johnny Logans hanging around, like some other teams had. But if you’d like to catch up on any of the previous divisions before jumping in, you can read more:

    AL East (quiz, article)
    NL East (quiz, article)
    AL Central (quiz, article)
    NL Central (quiz, article)
    AL West (quiz, article)

    With those out of the way, you can try the new NL West quiz HERE, then come back here for a discussion of the answers. As per usual, players can come from any point in the franchise’s history, they just need to have worn a uniform number for three of their seasons on the team. There are only three bonus answers this time, one Dodger who didn’t reach the three-year minimum, another Dodger who came in seventh by 0.1 WAR, and one Giant to make up for a player from the New York days making the list.

    Good luck!


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    Friday, December 4, 2020

    Retired Number Quiz Series: The American League West

    Today, we move to our penultimate division in the Retired Number Quiz series, the AL West. In stark contrast with the Central divisions, four-fifths of the teams in the AL West are expansion teams, making them the overall youngest division.* Still, I think there are a lot of solid options here. And if you missed any of the previous pieces, so far, there’s the AL East (quiz, article), the NL East (quiz, article), the AL Central (quiz, article), and the NL Central (quiz, article).

    *Technically, all three expansion teams in the NL West are newer than any AL West team, but the age of the Giants and Dodgers leaves the AL West with the lower average age. I guess that means the NL West is younger by median, but either way, they still cover more history.

    You can try the AL West quiz HERE before coming back here to read the full breakdown. As a refresher, players must have worn a uniform number for at least three seasons, and this quiz covers the entire history of the franchise. For bonus answers, there are five A’s; one who failed to reach the three-year minimum, and four players from the Oakland era of the team, since two-thirds of the list is from before their move out to California.

    As usual, good luck!


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    Tuesday, December 1, 2020

    Retired Number Quiz Series: The National League Central

    We’re now in the back half of this trip through the league. Having covered the AL East (quiz, article), the NL East (quiz, article), and the AL Central (quiz, article), we now move on to the next division, the NL Central. As I mentioned last time, the two Central divisions have the oldest teams on average, which makes things a little more difficult. But I still don’t find this one on the whole to be as tough as the AL Central; their NL Central counterparts just don’t feel like they’ve picked over their retired number options quite as thoroughly.

    When you’re ready, you can play the quiz HERE, then return after you’re finished to learn more about the answers. As a reminder, players must have worn a uniform number on the team in question for at least three seasons. Since none of these teams have moved, the only bonus answer this time is a Hall of Famer for the Reds who didn’t reach that three-year minimum.

    Have fun!


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