Calling someone "overrated" has become the coward's way of criticizing them.
One can always refer to some ridiculously exaggerated praise—or even just make up what you feel the general zeitgeist was—and say, 'Oh, he was overrated.' It means nothing. Except that it means you don't have to bother to come up with a serious critique of the player in question, because you don't have one.
Though I will say that every single Red Sox star in my lifetime has been "overrated" until he had a single bad season/ playoff series/ game/ inning/ at-bat, at which point he was thoroughly demonized by the same people singing his praises five minutes earlier.
Jete's is 10th in career WAR for shortstops. You know about the offense and the other great stuff. It's just a stat, but for the 'top' 500 SS's in dWar, Jeter is 499th, with a -9.4 dWar. We old timers still feel that SS is a 'defensive position'.
So is Jeter in the Top 5?
1 Honus Wagner HOF 130.9 2 Alex Rodriguez 117.5 3 Cal Ripken Jr. HOF 95.9 4 George Davis HOF 84.7 5 Arky Vaughan HOF 78.0 6 Robin Yount HOF 77.3 7 Luke Appling HOF 77.1 8 Ozzie Smith HOF 76.9 9 Bill Dahlen 75.3 10 Derek Jeter HOF 71.3
We other old-timers feel that everything but DH is a defensive position. We also feel that PEDs are bullshit, which eliminates Shortstop No. 2.
Second...
According to baseball reference, Jeter's offensive WAR is 96.3. Take away that -9.4, and that comes out to 86.9, which puts Jeter fourth all time, not 10th. (And actually 3rd, if you eliminate you-know-who.)...
No. 4—Geo. Davis played long enough ago, 1890-1909, as to make a mockery of all the new stats. For instance, he had 62 errors at SS in 1897, but a plus 1.6 defensive WAR.
Lifetime, Davis had 803 errors in 2,363 games. Jeter had 254 errors in 2,674 games. Davis has a plus 24.0 defensive WAR, Jeter has that -9.4 WAR. Sorry, but either the errors or the WAR are nonsense.
No. 9—Bill Dahlen, 1891-1911: 1,080 errors in 2,433 games. Plus 28.5 defensive WAR.
And on and on. Appling: 672 errors in 2,359 games.
I know, I know: it's about range. But with that many errors, all of these guys must've covered 3B as well as SS.
Hell, they must've played LF too, and maybe run in to do a little catching on change-ups.
Point is, fielding is where the new stats fall apart, in good part because it's a measure not of WHAT happened, but what somebody decides SHOULD have happened. And they particularly fall apart over time, because we just don't have the same idea of what an error should be.
Baseball ref. gives Ozzie Smith a plus 48.8 offensive WAR, and a plus 44.2 defensive WAR.
That adds up to 93.0, to Jeter's 86.9.
Uh-huh.
Look, I think Ozzie Smith was a great player, and I loved seeing him play. He really was a wizard at shortstop. (Of course, much of his career was played on carpet, meaning that that many more balls were either going through or not going through than would have been on natural turf. But that's another conversation.)
Let's say, for the sake of conversation, that Ozzie Smith was indeed many times the fielder that Derek Jeter was.
Ozzie Smith hit 28 home runs over 19 seasons. He batted .262. His lifetime OPS was .666.
Jeter hit 260 homers over what were really 18 seasons—he played a combined 32 in the other two years—and slashed .310/.377/.440/.817.
I don't about you, but I'm taking Jeter for my team even over Ozzie. And lifetime? I guess I'd rank him after Wagner and Ripken. And that's it.
The problem is that we know nothing for sure about how to measure the "value" of defense. The measurement of offensive value is much more clear. That negative dWAR is nothing more than a guess. Maybe it's a hater-driven, Boston-loving gammonite "guess?" The people who analyze baseball all have their biases, and the bias leaks into their analyses, especially when the metrics are unclear.
I agree, Warbler. And the problem is compounded when you mix fielding with WAR.
For instance, you have Jeter and A-Rod at short and third. Combined, they have a certain WAR. Reverse their positions—as the Yankees probably should have done—and you have a different, combined WAR.
Which is nonsense. They're the same two ballplayers, covering the same amount of ground between them, hitting in the same lineup.
WAR may be useful in measuring one player at a position against other players at that position, but it's useless for measuring the worth of one player against any other.
A classic example is 1964, in which some of the sabremetricious feel that the MVP should have been...Ron Hansen, shortstop for the White Sox.
Sure, Hansen had a career year, hitting 20 home runs—very rare for a SS then—batting .261 (when BAs were usually low), and running up a 4.9 oWAR and a 4.0 dWAR.
The defensive WAR is a bit surprising, since Hansen made 21 errors and had a .975 FA. His total chances were behind only those of Bobby Knoop, who made 20 errors, had a .978 FA...and only had a 3.3 dWAR. But never mind. In order to avoid madness in these corona-crazy days, let's say that that dWAR calculation is completely correct...
...So Hansen has a combined 8.9 WAR, which got him 16th place in the MVP voting.
Nos. 1 and 2 were Brooks Robinson, and Mickey Mantle. Brooks led the league in RBI, slashed .317/.368/.521/.889, won a Gold Glove, and had a 6.4 oWAR and a 2.2 dWAR, for a total of 8.6.
Mantle had his last great year, leading the AL in OBP and OPS, and slashing, .303/.423/.591/1.015. He had a 6.0 oWAR and, slowing down in CF where he played just 102 games, only a -2.0 dWAR.
In other words, the MVP vote came down to one between probably the best all-around player in the league, and easily the best hitter in the league (and probably in all of baseball).
THAT strikes me as a legitimate debate. To say it should really go to the guys who was the best SS because other shortstops were not as comparatively good as other third basemen and centerfielders were to Robinson and Mantle...strikes me as specious.
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Calling someone "overrated" has become the coward's way of criticizing them.
ReplyDeleteOne can always refer to some ridiculously exaggerated praise—or even just make up what you feel the general zeitgeist was—and say, 'Oh, he was overrated.' It means nothing. Except that it means you don't have to bother to come up with a serious critique of the player in question, because you don't have one.
Though I will say that every single Red Sox star in my lifetime has been "overrated" until he had a single bad season/ playoff series/ game/ inning/ at-bat, at which point he was thoroughly demonized by the same people singing his praises five minutes earlier.
Jete's is 10th in career WAR for shortstops.
ReplyDeleteYou know about the offense and the other great stuff.
It's just a stat, but for the 'top' 500 SS's in dWar,
Jeter is 499th, with a -9.4 dWar.
We old timers still feel that SS is a 'defensive position'.
So is Jeter in the Top 5?
1 Honus Wagner HOF 130.9
2 Alex Rodriguez 117.5
3 Cal Ripken Jr. HOF 95.9
4 George Davis HOF 84.7
5 Arky Vaughan HOF 78.0
6 Robin Yount HOF 77.3
7 Luke Appling HOF 77.1
8 Ozzie Smith HOF 76.9
9 Bill Dahlen 75.3
10 Derek Jeter HOF 71.3
We other old-timers feel that everything but DH is a defensive position. We also feel that PEDs are bullshit, which eliminates Shortstop No. 2.
ReplyDeleteSecond...
According to baseball reference, Jeter's offensive WAR is 96.3. Take away that -9.4, and that comes out to 86.9, which puts Jeter fourth all time, not 10th. (And actually 3rd, if you eliminate you-know-who.)...
And as to the all-important defensive WAR:
ReplyDeleteNo. 4—Geo. Davis played long enough ago, 1890-1909, as to make a mockery of all the new stats. For instance, he had 62 errors at SS in 1897, but a plus 1.6 defensive WAR.
Lifetime, Davis had 803 errors in 2,363 games. Jeter had 254 errors in 2,674 games. Davis has a plus 24.0 defensive WAR, Jeter has that -9.4 WAR. Sorry, but either the errors or the WAR are nonsense.
No. 9—Bill Dahlen, 1891-1911: 1,080 errors in 2,433 games. Plus 28.5 defensive WAR.
And on and on. Appling: 672 errors in 2,359 games.
I know, I know: it's about range. But with that many errors, all of these guys must've covered 3B as well as SS.
Hell, they must've played LF too, and maybe run in to do a little catching on change-ups.
Point is, fielding is where the new stats fall apart, in good part because it's a measure not of WHAT happened, but what somebody decides SHOULD have happened. And they particularly fall apart over time, because we just don't have the same idea of what an error should be.
Bologna, to use a polite word...
But let's use a contemporary comparison.
ReplyDeleteBaseball ref. gives Ozzie Smith a plus 48.8 offensive WAR, and a plus 44.2 defensive WAR.
That adds up to 93.0, to Jeter's 86.9.
Uh-huh.
Look, I think Ozzie Smith was a great player, and I loved seeing him play. He really was a wizard at shortstop. (Of course, much of his career was played on carpet, meaning that that many more balls were either going through or not going through than would have been on natural turf. But that's another conversation.)
Let's say, for the sake of conversation, that Ozzie Smith was indeed many times the fielder that Derek Jeter was.
Ozzie Smith hit 28 home runs over 19 seasons. He batted .262. His lifetime OPS was .666.
Jeter hit 260 homers over what were really 18 seasons—he played a combined 32 in the other two years—and slashed .310/.377/.440/.817.
I don't about you, but I'm taking Jeter for my team even over Ozzie. And lifetime? I guess I'd rank him after Wagner and Ripken. And that's it.
The problem is that we know nothing for sure about how to measure the "value" of defense. The measurement of offensive value is much more clear. That negative dWAR is nothing more than a guess. Maybe it's a hater-driven, Boston-loving gammonite "guess?" The people who analyze baseball all have their biases, and the bias leaks into their analyses, especially when the metrics are unclear.
ReplyDeleteI agree, Warbler. And the problem is compounded when you mix fielding with WAR.
ReplyDeleteFor instance, you have Jeter and A-Rod at short and third. Combined, they have a certain WAR. Reverse their positions—as the Yankees probably should have done—and you have a different, combined WAR.
Which is nonsense. They're the same two ballplayers, covering the same amount of ground between them, hitting in the same lineup.
WAR may be useful in measuring one player at a position against other players at that position, but it's useless for measuring the worth of one player against any other.
A classic example is 1964, in which some of the sabremetricious feel that the MVP should have been...Ron Hansen, shortstop for the White Sox.
Sure, Hansen had a career year, hitting 20 home runs—very rare for a SS then—batting .261 (when BAs were usually low), and running up a 4.9 oWAR and a 4.0 dWAR.
The defensive WAR is a bit surprising, since Hansen made 21 errors and had a .975 FA. His total chances were behind only those of Bobby Knoop, who made 20 errors, had a .978 FA...and only had a 3.3 dWAR. But never mind. In order to avoid madness in these corona-crazy days, let's say that that dWAR calculation is completely correct...
...So Hansen has a combined 8.9 WAR, which got him 16th place in the MVP voting.
ReplyDeleteNos. 1 and 2 were Brooks Robinson, and Mickey Mantle. Brooks led the league in RBI, slashed .317/.368/.521/.889, won a Gold Glove, and had a 6.4 oWAR and a 2.2 dWAR, for a total of 8.6.
Mantle had his last great year, leading the AL in OBP and OPS, and slashing, .303/.423/.591/1.015. He had a 6.0 oWAR and, slowing down in CF where he played just 102 games, only a -2.0 dWAR.
In other words, the MVP vote came down to one between probably the best all-around player in the league, and easily the best hitter in the league (and probably in all of baseball).
THAT strikes me as a legitimate debate. To say it should really go to the guys who was the best SS because other shortstops were not as comparatively good as other third basemen and centerfielders were to Robinson and Mantle...strikes me as specious.
Oh Hoss, you are the best!
ReplyDeleteDon't worry Bitty; you still complete me!
Fuck you Hal and MLB combined!
ReplyDeleteI really want the world to know about this great man who brought back happiness into my life again after my husband left me and the kids 3 years ago for another women online when i contacted Dr Believe he cast a love spell for me within 48 hours my ex husband start calling me and begging for forgiveness for everything that have happened between us. I was so happy to have my family back together with love again here is the email of Dr Believe via believelovespelltemple@gmail.com a man with the great powers you can also call him or add him on Whats-app: +2348156148821
God bless you
I am very grateful for your help in my marriage.