Estimated Career WAR: Stickball HOF Edition

 My last few posts have detailed how I calculate Estimated Career WAR, and this post will focus more on the results than the process. As of this morning, I have an Estimated Career WAR total for each member of the Stickball HOF, so now it's time to break those down a bit...partly for fun and partly to help the HOF Committee evaluate candidates.  Before we do a super deep dive, the full results without commentary can be seen below (HOF members are highlighted in gold). In my next post, I'll look at the HOF in more depth with a position-by-position breakdown and maybe another metric or two.  

MLB All Stars: Who Earned It? (Red Sox & Rockies Edition)

 This blog post will focus on MLB rather than Stickball, but my goal here is to provide real-life examples of the kinds of things that I'd like to use the WAR data that I calculate in Stickball for. Since the MLB All-Star Rosters have recently been announced, there is much chatter about whether those chosen deserve to be there, who got snubbed etc. As someone who is a Red Sox fan first and foremost, with the Rockies as my adopted NL team, those are the two that I hear most about. Tanner Houck, Raffy Devers, Jarren Duran and Ryan McMahon all certainly pass the eye test as All-Stars but there are a couple other Red Sox that I thought would be deserving if they got the nod (I'm looking at you, Connor Wong.) 

The phrase "All-Star Caliber season" gets tossed around a lot in various sports, but it can be kinda hard to define. Thanks to the ever-helpful website Fangraphs.com, there is actually a definition that I find to be both helpful and pretty accurate: 4.0 WAR or more for a full year. Since the All-Star Break is about halfway through the season, the logical conclusion would be that anyone who has 2.0 WAR or more at the halfway point is having an "All-Star Caliber season"...so now all we need to do is to take a look at Fangraph's data to see if those chosen are in fact worthy and/or if anyone got snubbed. Here's what I found: 

• Tanner Houck = 3.2 WAR --> on pace for 6.4 WAR, which is an "MVP Level" season
• Raffy Devers = 3.3 WAR --> on pace for 6.6 WAR, which is an "MVP Level" season
• Jarren Duran = 3.3 WAR --> on pace for 6.6 WAR, which is an "MVP Level" season
• Ryan McMahon = 2.1 WAR --> on pace for 4.2 WAR, which is an "All-Star Caliber" season

The following guys from those two teams are having "All-Star Caliber" seasons without getting selected:

• Kutter Crawford = 2.0 WAR --> 4.0 WAR pace 
• Brenton Doyle = 2.4 WAR --> 4.8 WAR pace 

Overall, the voters got it right...although I selfishly would have liked to see some love for Crawford (arguably one of the best baseball names in the game right now!) and Wong who is ridiculously athletic for a catcher; his 1.6 WAR is not quite up to the level of All-Star, but is also lower than I would have expected. 

Meet Your Hall of Famers: Luther MacDougal

 

Bio:   Luther was born in Omaha, NE (Pop. 488,000).  Even though he was born in Nebraska, he attended high school across the river in Iowa at Abraham Lincoln High School in Council Bluffs.  He pitched for the Lynx and helped lead them to back-to-back state championships.  He was an All-Class All-State selection in his Junior and Senior year.

Draft: Was the 21st pick in Season 37 by New York (tmfran).   Signed for $2,130,000 million.

Scout Vinny Childs- “Luther MacDougal has an above average arm.  His curveball could materialize into a great pitch.  He has average velocity and control which could hold him back.  He could be an All-star, but a regular bullpen arm is more likely.”

 Career Earnings: $42,735,000

Career: Luther MacDougal was drafted 21^st and signed by New York (tmfran) in Season 37. He broke into the Majors in season 43 and played 15 seasons all for New York.  He was an 11-time All-Star and won 7 Fireman of the Year Awards (46, 50, 51, 52, 53, 54, 55).  His best year was Season 48. In that year he threw 44 INN with a WHIP of .86.  He was 43 of 46 in Saves, with 35 K’s and OAV .177 and 1.43 ERA.  Over his career he had 480 SV, and 21 Wins.  He also accumulated 606 K’s over 767.1 INN with a .227 OAV, 1.15 WHIP, and 2.83 ERA. He holds the Season and Career Record for Saves for New York with 47 in season 50 and 480 overall.

 Speech Highlight-  “Thank you. Thank you. First of all, I don't understand why I always have to be the last (smiling). I keep saying that for the last 20 years. Last 17 years of my career, I always say, Why I have to be the last one?  I guess being the last one is special…………As a young boy in my beautiful Panama, yes, I wanted to be the next Pelé. Was not about Babe Ruth, Lou Gehrig, I wanted to be a Pelé. Pelé is a soccer superstar. So every child in every Latin country wanted to be the next Pelé.   But my abilities were not good enough for me to be a soccer player. So the Lord was pushing me to baseball. I loved baseball, but I didn't thought that baseball would be something I would use as a career.”