Friday, June 29, 2007

How Soon We Forget: Milestones

On Thursday, baseball history was made once again as Craig Biggio collected his 3,000th hit and Frank Thomas hit his 500th homerun. In the moments that followed, especially the coverage of both these milestones, I was disappointed to hear how much focus was on these two numbers as litmus tests for the Hall of Fame. It was as if everyone forgot how good Biggio and Thomas were as overall players.

Biggio, nicknamed Pigpen for his pine tarred helmet and simply messing his uniform constantly, and Thomas, aka Big Hurt for his power and sheer size, were two of the best players in the 1990s. I haven't seen that written or said anywhere as a result of both their milestones--and honestly even before they reached them, they were always going to be two of the best from that decade.

I'll prove it to you. For anyone who's familiar with the work of Bill James, who's essentially the father of sabermetrics and arguable the most influencial outsider to the game of baseball, he developed a system to rate players called Win Shares back in 2002. I'll leave it to James to explain what a Win Share is:

"Win Shares are, in essence, Wins Created..or actually, thirds of a Win Created. Win Shares take the concept of Runs Created and moved it one stop futher, from runs to wins."--Bill James, Win Shares (2002)

Basically it's a measure of an individual player's contribution to a team's overall win total. For example, last year the Yankees won 97 games and Jeter put up a terrific year. Of those 97 wins, how many can be attributed to Jeter. Well, Jeter totaled 32 Win Shares and doing the math (32/3) Jeter contributed 10.6 wins to those 97 wins.

When you look back to a player's career or even a decade of baseball, this concept allows you to see how valuable a player was. During the 1990s, Biggio and Thomas rank exactly 2nd and 3rd in terms of total Win Shares for that decade.

Bonds 523
Biggio 342
Thomas 308

Yes, they rank ahead of such players as Ken Griffey, Jr, Rafael Palmeiro, Mark McGwire, Greg Maddux, and even Biggio's old teammate Jeff Bagwell. I'll let you do the math (just divide by three) and compare it to their respective team's win totals during that decade to see their value. I'm sure you're suprised A) that Biggio is ahead of Thomas but moreso B) Biggio was the second best player in the 1990s. This certainly isn't something the media would point out because no one would ever say Biggio was the 2nd best. He wasn't a homerun hitter, never won a batting title, never won an MVP--so what's up with that?? Well, if you disagree with my assessment--or Bill James' rather--send me a comment or email (rivalryredux@gmail.com), but you should also read the Win Shares book to know what you're getting into.

But back to my original point--we're talking about two milestones, that are very big ones, but the focus on them ignores how great Biggio and Thomas are.

I compiled a run down of some key and also interesting stats and factoids for Biggio and Thomas. First Biggio's notables:

  • Biggio was (and continues to be) a very durable player. He played in over 1,800 games without landing on the DL until tearing up his knee in 2000. Additionally, he played in over 1,300 straight games and some people thought he would challenge Cal Ripken, Jr's consecutive games streak.
  • Seven time All-Star ('91-'92, '94-'98)
  • Won four consecutive gold gloves at 2b ('94 to '97). Biggio actually started his career as a catcher before switching to 2b in 1992. In my opinion, this certainly saved his career and kept him going into his 40s.
  • Biggio was a leadoff hitter and holds the NL record for leadoff homeruns (27)
  • Ranks 14th all time (1,822) in runs scrored and is just 66 runs behind Lou Gerhig who is 10th on the list
  • Ranks 2nd all time (284) in being hit by a pitch. He needs just four more plunks to be number one.
  • Is 27th all time in extra base hits (999), which is ahead of such Hall of Famers at Paul Molitor, Mickey Mantle, Eddie Matthews, and Joe Dimmagio.
  • Has 413 career steals with a 77% success rate
  • Hit into NO (zero) double plays in the 1997 season

And Frank Thomas:

  • Won back-to-back MVPs in 1993 and 1994
  • Excluding the two MVPs, Thomas was in the top ten voting for MVP seven times
  • From 1991 to 1997, Thomas was in the top three in OPS in the AL, being the leader in '91, '92, '94, and '97
  • Speaking of OPS, Thomas ranks 11th all time in OPS, ahead of some all time greats such as Mickey Mantle, Stan Musial, Willie Mays, and Mel Ott
  • Thomas was known for having an excellent hitting eye and getting on base. His career OBP (.423) ranks 18th all time
  • Also 12th all time in walks
  • Hit 40 or more homers five times in his career, 30 or more eight times
  • Has 100 or more RBIs in 11 seasons (including eight in a row from '91 to '98)
  • Is just the 21st player in baseball history to hit 500 Homeruns. As the argument these days goes, is 500 HRs an automatic guarentee a player gets in the HOF, especially considering how many players (McGwire, Sosa, Bonds, Palmeiro, Griffey Jr) have made the club since the late 1990s (with Thome, Manny, A-Rod, and Sheffield soon to be). But give me a break--steriod allegations aside--being just the 21st player in a game 100+ years old is impressive.

Did you Forget Already?

Of course like typical Americans with a short attention span, we forget too easily and too quickly all these other accomplishments. We remember other things though--the negatives--of players such as these two. Like Biggio never winning a World Series or Frank Thomas' series of injuries from 1999 onward. Or that Biggio keeps getting signed to one-year contracts each season so he could get the 3,000 hits. Or even that Thomas' relationship with the White Sox organization went very sour.

Both these ballplayers are going into the Hall of Fame though--first ballot or not, they will get in. But while both ballplayers certainly have declined since the 1990s, as they continued to play into the next decade they are up there with some of the best that ever played the game.

And what I found the most interesting about these milestones the other day was how both Biggio and Thomas emphasized that they played the game the way it should be played. Maybe this was a knock on players who took steriods and have reached even greater heights as a result of that. But I'll end it here with their quotes:

"Honestly I just feel that I play the game the same way that the guys before me played the game. They ran everything out--ground balls, fly balls, no matter what--even the guys that aren't on that list. Frank Robinson's of the world, guys like that, they played the game the right way. And I feel that I did my part, I've been doing my part to play the game the same way they did and that's why I'm honored--with all these names that we've been associated with because of that reason alone, because they played the right way." --Craig Biggio on becoming part of the 3000 hit club



"It means a lot to me because I did it the right way. I could care less what others have done," --Frank Thomas on hitting his 500th homerun

Thursday, June 28, 2007

Upcoming Post Ideas

One more before I hit the sack tonight. I've been thinking of what posts to write heading into the All-Star Break--since I do the whole Hindsight Foresight thing every week, I'll leave the July 9th post for the Hindsight/Foresight mid way through the Yankees season.

During the break, I'd like to look at some potential trades the Yankees may make, but that'll be pure guesswork. I haven't heard a whole lot, except for at firstbase, but I'll save if for the break.

Also, I want to turn more of my attention to baseball as a whole--maybe Doug will take some of these on, but my thoughts approaching the AS break are to:

1. Write posts looking at teams--who's a suprise, who's not, who's on par and what could we expect in the second half. This will be two posts, one about the AL and the other the NL.
2. Just like teams, looking at specific players, maybe broken down by position--any fluke seasons, who's underperforming, 1st half comeback players of the year, and prediction wise--who's likely to pick it up in the second half?
3. Finally, a look back on this past offseason's big contracts (that means you Zito and Meche). How are they working out so far?

This is a lot of work, but other than my fantasy teams, I haven't been doing as good a job of looking at other players stats besides that of the Yankees and Red Sox.

Time to get that internet connection Doug.

Belated--Hindsight and Foresight: June 18th to July 2nd

Where have we been??? Well, actually hanging out in Charleston, SC at Doug's. It was a great trip--short and sweet. Kinda like how the Yankees two week stretch looked before last week's horrific Return of the 2007 Yankees.

Hindsight: June 18th to June 24th

I'll keep it brief because it was ugly. Ugly as in no offense in the most offensive park in baseball, Coors Field (5 runs in 3 games). Ugly as in Matsui and Abreu stopped hitting. Ugly as in Damon is not the right leadoff guy for the Yankees right now. Ugly as in the Yankees just didn't give any run support. I caught one game while with Doug--it was nice watching the Yankees game on one tv and the Red Sox on the other--and the Yankees just looked like zombies. I'm disappointed now that we're two weeks before the mid point of the season and I thought June looked like it's be what catapulted the Yankees to get several games above .500.

Weekly Stats

I apologize these are off since this is a belated post. Some stats only go back to June 20th (so it's not true of the Hindsight).

W-L: 1-5
RS/RA: 15/33
Offensive Numbers (BA/OBP/SLG): .281/.347/.757 (this is since the 20th however)
Pitching Line (ERA/Whip/K per 9/BAA/SLG): 4.50/1.61/4.67/.286/.410 (since 6/20)
Who's Hot: Alex Rodriguez. He kept on hitting, but the offense around him dried up.
Who's Not: Kei Igawa. The Yankees must regret this signing already because he just isn't ready for the majors.
My Yankee of the Week: Jason Giambi. The deal worked out the way most people saw it. Giambi will answer the Mitchell Panel's questions but will not finger point.

Foresight: June 25th to July 2nd

Damn, it's going to be July already and like I said the halfway point of the season is coming up in about two weeks, so who knows were the Yankees will stand. Already they're down 0-2 in the O's series. As one friend of mine put it, "they're starting to look like ass again"--true that. I'll be up at the game tomorrow night to see Wang pitch against Cabrera. It should bring back some memories a la 2003 when I used to watch Want play for the Trenton Thunder. After the O's the Yanks head back home to face A's and then start a four game series agains the Twins on the 2nd. They'll go up a surely fluke season so far, Dan Haren. As far as I'm concerned though, the last two weeks of Yankee baseball finally looked just like that, but now that the team is fairly healthly and together, there's no clear reason why they fell apart this last week and a half.

By the way, The Bronx is Burning, will premiere July 9th and is an 8-week miniseries. It has John "nobody fucks with the Jesus" Turturro as Billy Martin and Oliver Platt as George Steinbrenner. I will certainly be watching it as often as I can and tape it when need be, but it'll certainly be an entertaining flick.

Also a small movie recommendation here--go see the new Die Hard movie. It's a good ol' kick ass, blow shit up action movie that doesn't suck.