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.”

Anatomy of an Importance Score: Pitcher Deep Dive

 Starting last season, I began a series of posts that explain the method to my madness in terms of how I arrive at the Importance Scores that I share. So far I've talked about the different methods of calculating WAR and done a deep dive on a position player. During the HOF Committee's debates this season, we had some discussions about Slim Stewart...but I didn't have any data on him yet so he makes a lot of logical sense to be the focus of my deep dive on a pitcher. 

Just like with position players, I have an Estimated WAR total and a Park Adjusted WAR total. The difference is that I calculate the Estimated WAR for pitchers differently than I do for hitters. In the case of pitchers, I use the HOF Monitor Score and convert that to an Estimated WAR mark based on the different scales that are used. In other words, a HOF Monitor Score of 130 is considered an absolute lock for the HOF and 100 Career WAR is also considered an absolute lock...so I take the HOF Monitor Score and divide by 1.3 to get an Estimated WAR total. This method is significantly less accurate than the Estimated WAR for hitters in terms of being close to the Park Adjusted WAR total but still does a good job of identifying viable candidates. 

Here's how I arrived at Slim Stewart's Importance Score: 

• 4 years with 18 or 19 wins = 16 HOFM points
• 6 years with 15-17 wins = 12 HOFM points
• 1 year with 200-249 K = 2 HOFM points
• 4 years with 14 + Wins & .700 + Win% = 8 HOFM points
• 9 years with ERA under 3.00 and 150 IP = 9 HOFM points 
• 9 All Star selections = 27 HOFM points 
• 260 Career Wins = 20 HOFM points
• 0.639 Career Win % = 8 HOFM points 
• 7 playoff wins = 7 HOFM points
• 2.98 Career ERA = 10 HOFM points
• 3166 Career K = 10 HOFM points = 129 total HOFM points

129 HOFM points/1.3 = 99 Estimated Career WAR; 19 ML seasons = ~5.20 WAR/season

With the Importance Score being WAR/season with bonus points for Cy Youngs, WS Rings and MVP Awards as well as seasons with 4+ WAR the final category gets left out until I calculate Park Adjusted WAR. So, for right now Stewart's Importance Score is 5.2 + 2 bonus points for his World Series Ring = 7.20 total...but that will (likely) go up when I have time to calculate all 19 of his Park Adjusted WAR seasons. 

Anatomy of an Importance Score: Position Player Deep Dive

 Ultimately, my goal with calculating WAR totals is to come up with an average WAR per year because that's the baseline for my "Importance Score" metric that I use to judge the Hall of Fame candidates. So, for example, someone who produced 50 WAR in 10 seasons would have a baseline Importance Score of 5.0 before bonuses (which are given out for WS Rings, Cy Young Awards and MVP Awards.) 

To make the most accurate comparisons possible, I would ideally compare apples to apples aka shortstops to shortstops and designated hitters to designated hitters etc. To this end, I have sorted the HOF by position where "position" is defined by where they played the most ML innings rather than what WIS says on the site (because sometimes there's a difference.) As of this writing, there are no shortstops in the Stickball HOF and just one DH. This means that figuring out what the "average HOF DH" in Stickball world is fairly straightforward and also my next project...which makes that player, Yeico Johnson, the perfect case study for my "Anatomy" series of posts. Here's how that goes: 

Step 1: Calculate Estimated Offensive WAR 

• When I plug the stats from the HOF spreadsheet into this calculator, I find that he produced 1929 Runs Created in his career as a DH
• According to research that I did awhile back a "replacement level" DH should produce 70 RC/year and his 2433 games played = 15.02 full seasons...so 15.02 seasons * 70 RC/season means that a replacement level DH that got his amount of playing time would produce 1051.30 Runs Created
• That means that he is 1929-1051.30 = 877.7 Runs Created above "replacement" 
• At 10 runs/win, that gives him an "Estimated WAR" of 87.77 on offense 

Step 2: Calculate Estimated Defensive WAR

Once I have an Offensive WAR total, I shift my focus to defense. For this, I lean heavily on the FanGraphs Positional Adjustment.  Their career innings at each position and those adjustments from FanGraphs account for one part of the defensive WAR calculations and Errors, Plus Plays and Minus Plays account for the second part of the defensive WAR calculations. In the wOBA calculations that my more complicated spreadsheet uses a single is worth 0.31 Runs Created, so to make my life easy I do (Plus Plays-Errors-Minus Plays)*0.31 to get a "Raw Fielding Runs" total at each position. Then I combine the Raw Fielding Runs with the Positional Adjustments to get Total Fielding Runs which are then converted to Fielding WAR using the "10 runs per win" rule once again. My calculations for Johnson are below: 

In total, his Estimated Defensive WAR is -12.28 Wins Above Replacement. 

Step 3: Combine WAR totals....87.77 Offensive WAR & -12.28 Defensive WAR = 75.49 total for Estimated WAR

Step 4: Create An "Importance Score" Baseline... Johnson saw ML action in parts of 18 ML seasons, so 75.49 WAR/18 seasons = an average of 4.19 WAR/season. 

Step 5: Calculate "Importance Score" Bonus Points...the Importance Score is essentially borrowed from an MLB.com piece on ranking the best free agent signings of all-time, so I also basically borrowed their scoring system. That system awards 2 points for a WS Ring, 2 points for a Cy Young and 2 points for an MVP Award. They also award 1 additional bonus point for each year that a player recorded 4+ WAR, but I don't give those out until I've had a chance to calculate Park Adjusted WAR for each year of a player's career. Johnson didn't win any rings but he does have 3 MVP awards to his name, so that's 6 bonus points. 

Step 6: "Final" Importance Score with Estimated WAR... Johnson's Importance Score using Estimated WAR is 4.19 (baseline) + 6 (bonus points) = 10.19 total. The general guideline that I have given the HOF Committee is that any player in double digits is likely worthy of election, so Johnson clears that bar. 

(Step 7: Calculate Park Adjusted WAR for all seasons of a player's career)

(Step 8: Adjust baseline Importance Score using new WAR totals)

(Step 9: Award 1 bonus point for each season of 4+ WAR)

Meet Your Hall of Famers: Renato Hernandez

 

Bio:   Renato was born in Maiquetia, VE (Pop. 88,000, in North Central Venezuela, on the Caribbean Sea).  Renato broke on to the baseball scene when he pitched for Venezuela in the World Baseball Classic.  In that tournament he struck out 18 batters in just 8 innings of work.  He then signed with Austin in Season 42.

International Signing: Signed for $7 million in Season 42 (8^th most that year) by Austin (rwgeorge7)

Scout Lucas Fick- “Renato displayed great velocity with tremendous control in the WBC.  He reminds you of Mariano Rivera being so effective with just 2 fastballs.  His pinpoint control made him deadly to right handers.”

 Career Earnings: $101,839,000

Career: Renato Hernandez was an international free agent signed by Austin (rwgeorge7) in Season 42. He broke into the Majors in season 44 and played 17 seasons.  He also played six seasons for Tampa/Memphis before heading to FA.  In FA he signed with Seattle and played 10 for the Super Troopers. He then finished his career playing one season in Huntington.  In his first pro season he had elbow surgery that almost cost him his career.  He rehabbed and when on to be a 14-time All-Star, won 5 Fireman of the Year Awards (48, 52, 54, 55, 56), and won 3 World Series Ring (52, 53, 55).  Renato was so consistent for his career; it is tough to pick out his best year.  But I feel his best year was Season 53 in Seattle. In that year he threw 91 INN with a WHIP of .91.  He won 10 Games and had 32 SV, with 93 K’s and OAV .191 and 2.37 ERA.  Over his career he had 645 SV, and 53 Wins.  He also accumulated 1081 K’s over 1142 INN with a .207 OAV, 1.06 WHIP, and 2.35 ERA. He holds the Season and Career Record in Saves for Seattle with 53 in season 52 and 435 overall.

Speech Highlight- After being compared to Mariano Rivera..he copied some of his speech “But my abilities were not good enough for me to be a soccer player, so the Lord was pushing me to baseball.  I love baseball but I didn’t think baseball would be something I would use as a career.”

Meet Your Hall of Famers: Aurelio Wong and George Paul (The Cousins)

 

Bio: Aurelio Wong and George Paul were known as "The Cousins" of the Fargo locker room.  Although they were born in different countries, their personalities mired with each other as if they were cousins.  Aurelio was born in Barahona, DO (Pop. 138,000, in Southwest Dominican Republic).  George Paul was born in Atlanta, GA (Pop. 498,000).  Paul attended Crim High School in East downtown Atlanta.

Wong was an IFA: Signed for $19 million in Season 42 (The most that year) by Fargo (thebigdogs)

Paul was drafted: 3^rd overall in Season 39 by Fargo (thebigdogs), Signed for $3,440,000

Scout Abdullah Woodward: “Both Wong and Paul were great hitters.  Just different.  Wong had a lot of power and would swing and miss his fair share.  Paul was a great contact hitter with above average power.  Both could run…Paul had great speed and Wong had above average speed.  Neither was a great defender.”

Manager (thebigdogs): “Both Wong and Paul were an interictal part off the Fargo offense in the World Series runs in the late 40’s and early 50’s Seasons.  They added power and speed to make our offense elite.”

Career Earnings: Wong $176,137,000  Paul $96,062,000

Teams:

Wong: 15 ML Seasons Fargo 9, St Louis 1, El Paso 4, Las Vegas 1

Paul:  17 ML Seasons Fargo 11, New York 6

Awards:

Wong: 4-time All-Star, 2 Silver Slugger Awards (48, 57), and 4 World Series Ring (47, 48, 49, 51)

Paul: 4-time All Star, 1 MVP (50), 6 Silver Slugger Awards (43, 45, 46, 47, 48, 50) and 4 World Series Ring (47, 48, 49, 51)

Best Season:

Wong (Season 50): 175 H, 122 R, 23 2B, 7 3B, 55 HR, 166 RBI, 34 SB, .275 AVG, .924 OPS

Paul (Season 50 MVP): 209 H, 118 R, 43 2B, 4 3B, 43 HR, 145 RBI, 42 SB, .302 AVG, .911 OPS

Career Stat:

Wong: 2476 H, 1633 R, 347 2B, 75 3B, 670 HR, 1945 RBI, 469 SB, .274 AVG, .887 OPS

Paul: 2833 H, 1637 R, 539 2B, 76 3B, 508 HR, 1818 RBI, 791 SB, .291 AVG, .866 OPS

Speech Highlight: “The baseball journey goes beyond stats, accomplishments, and money….it is about the relationships and brotherhood you have with other players and coaches.  This journey has been filled with those relationships and am ever grateful.”