It’s been quite a while since I’ve written anything at BaseballTwit. For the last year-plus, I’ve been writing for Beyond the Box Score, providing historical analysis and infographics for the influential saber-slanted baseball site. I started off contributing on a “when I can” schedule, but later officially took on a weekly column.

Writing and visualizing for Beyond the Box Score was a great diversion from the insanity of my personal life. Unfortunately, time to devote to this diversion has been increasingly difficult to come by. So, this week, I reluctantly relinquished my column.

Am I done writing? I sure hope not. In fact, BtB’s manager Justin Bopp told me I’ll always have a platform to share my work. And that’s good, because I’ll have a lot to say when Hall of Fame season rolls around again.

I’m very proud of the work I did for BtB. Some of my favorite posts/projects include:

• The Hall of wWAR — I developed a metric called wWAR (Peak-Weighted Wins Above Replacement) and decided to see what the Hall of Fame would look like if it was populated simply by this one metric. I designed and built an interactive timeline of this alternate Hall (and the 66 players who were bumped from the original Hall of Fame) and wrote detailed position-by-position induction posts for the site.
• Interactive Hall of Fame Timeline — Before I did the Hall of wWAR timeline, I created a similar timeline for the “real” Hall of Fame.
• Interactive Hall of Fame Ballot — Another one of my favorite visualizations I did was the WAR/WAE/WAM “bullseye” (originally published to commemorate Ron Santo). I used the bullseyes on this click-and-draggable Hall of Fame ballot.
• Double Plays Erased 16.5% of Jim Rice’s Offensive Value — I loved the simplicity of this visualization. It tells so much just by using two circles. I wrote another post where I used the same visual for several other players.
• SaberCards — I loved baseball cards as a kid. But come on, they have archaic stats like batting average and wins and losses on the back. What would a card catered towards stat geeks look like? Well, a little something like this. (Here are a couple alternate designs.)

I really enjoyed writing for BtB and I’m grateful that the crew of Sky Kalkman, Erik Manning, and Dan Turkenkopf got me in the door. Hopefully I won’t be a stranger to the SaberWorld. There’s more I’d like to explore—I just need to carve out the time to do it.

Thanks so much to everyone who read a post, commented, or said something nice to me about my visualizations. It really means a lot.

Oddly, I mentioned it on my personal blog, but I didn’t mention it here—I’m now writing for Beyond the Box Score!

For quite a while now, Beyond the Box Score has been my favorite baseball blog. They’ve always had a good mix of future projection and historical analysis. I like to focus on historical analysis, so that’s mostly what I’ll be doing. As expected, I’ll be writing quite a bit about Wins Above Replacement (WAR), Wins Above Excellence (WAE), and Wins Above MVP Level (WAM).

Wait, what’s that last one?

Yeah, it seems I’ve kind of come up with a new stat. Well, it’s really just a new take on some existing stats. Sean Smith has built the incredible historical WAR database. Then he tallied just WAR above 3.0 and called it Wins Above Excellence. I’ve tallied just WAR above 6.0 and called it Wins Above MVP Level (WAM) in an attempt to measure only when players performed at a level that will generally put you in contention for an MVP award.

I’m now a half-dozen posts into my Beyond the Box Score career, so let’s take a peek at what I’ve done so far:

• Inevitable in 2010: Alex Rodriguez and 100 WAR: I started with a post about how Alex Rodriguez will pass Cap Anson to move into the career WAR top 20 next season. He’ll also be the 20th player to reach 100 career WAR.
• Active Multi-Gold Glovers: Do they deserve their reputation?: I really like this one. I took a look at the players in the Hall of Fame with the lowest career OPS, making the assumption they were inducted for their defense more than anything else. I then looked at the Total Zone metrics to see if they supported the induction. Some were yes, some were no.
• Wins Above MVP Level: In this one, I gathered all the WAR for every MVP season in history to define a baseline for the introduction of Wins Above MVP Level (WAM).
• More on Wins Above MVP Level (and the Upcoming Hall Ballot): In this one, I took a look at the returning and upcoming Hall of Fame candidates, based on Wins Above MVP Level.
• Best Single Season WAR (without winning the MVP): This was a response to a commenter who wanted to see the most valuable seasons to not be given an MVP award.
• Career Leaders in Wins Above MVP Level (WAM), Position Players: After much number crunching, here are the career leaders in Wins Above MVP Level (for position players). I compared rankings to rankings on the career WAR list.
• Willie Davis, underrated ballplayer (1940-2010): My first saber-obituary, for the late Willie Davis. He was a tremendous ballplayer and one who advanced metrics shed a new light on. My favorite part of this post is the breakdown of what goes into a player’s career WAR. I need to expand this into a primer, I think.

I love writing for Beyond the Box Score. What’s the best about it? Definitely the commenters. Those seven posts have generated over 100 comments combined. I love writing this stuff, but having the discussion that follows has made it even more enjoyable. You can see all my Beyond the Box Score work on my profile blog, but I highly recommend subscribing to the main feed.

Tom Glavine has retired. This WAR fanatic will tell you he’s 29th all time among pitchers (67.0). Schilling is 28th, Reuschel (!!!) is 30th.

Schilling and Reuschel, you say? Well, Curt Schilling is a heck of a lot more valuable than people give him credit for. This Beyond the Box Score piece from last year was eye-opening for a lot of us. Reuschel? I have to figure that one out. That’s a player who’s WAR greatly exceeds what you may expect. It happens. But often it happens for a very good reason.

29th all time among pitchers is quite incredible. Glavine ranks ahead of guys like Bob Feller, Juan Marichal, Jim Palmer, and this one surprised me—even John Smoltz. So, let’s see the Big Three by career WAR:

1. Greg Maddux — 96.8 WAR (tied for 8th with Phil Niekro)
2. Tom Glavine — 67.0 WAR (29th)
3. John Smoltz — 63.9 WAR (38th)

Still, three of the top 38 pitchers of all time pitching together in the same staff? Wow. When Schilling pitched with Randy Johnson, that rotation featured the #12 and #28 pitchers. When Schilling pitched with Pedro, that rotation featured #23 and #28 (and TIm Wakefield at #182!).

On to Frank Thomas. Andy at the Baseball-Reference Blog wrote a nice article on Thomas. In it, he says:

It’s very common to talk about players’ careers and wonder “how much better would he have been if he could just have stayed healthy?” Thomas is one of those cases, since after his age 32 season he managed only 3 more years with at least 140 games and had 4 full seasons with fewer than 80 games. However, there’s more to it than just the games. After missing almost all of 2001 he had a good-by-anybody-else’s-standards 2002 with 28 HR, 92 RBI, and a 118 OPS+. People wondered if he was done. Then in 2003 he roared back with 42 HR, 105 RBI, and a 146 OPS+. After two more lost years in 2004 and 2005 he came back from injury in 2006 and posted 39 HR, 114 RBI, and a 140 OPS+ in 137 games with Oakland (at age 38!) My point is that the guy twice came back from major injury layoffs to post huge seasons, which really lends credence to the idea that if he had been healthier he had a good shot to post some really big career totals. He might have played 300 more games and realistically could have had 70 more HR, which would have put him close to 600 career bombs.

That’s a great point. But instead of terms of career home runs, let’s look at how that would have affected his career WAR. Because, well, that’s what I do.

Frank Thomas ranks tied for 43rd all time among hitters in career WAR at 75.9. He is tied with turn of the 20th century star Bill Dahlen, who I recently wrote might be the most underrated player ever. Who else is near Thomas? Ranked 40 thru 50 is: Albert Pujols, Sam Crawford, Dahlen, Thomas, Arky Vaughan, Pete Rose, Paul Molitor, Frankie Frisch, Ed Delahanty, Reggie Jackson, and Paul Waner. So, he’s in there with a lot of all time greats.

Thomas missed almost all of 2001 (he had 78 plate appearances and was worth 0.0 WAR). In 2000, he was worth 6.6 WAR and in 2002, the year after the injury, was worth 2.2 WAR. If you average those, you can assume a healthy Thomas would have had a good chance at 4.4 WAR. Of course, were there no injury, one might assume that he would have not only had more than 4.4 WAR in 2001, but more than the 2.2 the season he came back. He followed that with 4.1 WAR in 2003. In 2004, he posted 2.9 WAR in 310 plate appearances (just half a season). Over a full 600 plate appearances, that comes out to 5.6 WAR. So let’s give him credit for 2.7 more. In 2005, Thomas posted 0.5 WAR in just 121 plate appearances. We estimated 5.6 WAR for 2004. In 2006, he had 3.3 WAR. The average between those is 4.45 WAR. I think it’s safe to assume he could have reached 4.4 WAR that year if healthy. Give him another 2.9 there.

In 2007, he posted 2.0 WAR (league average) and followed that up with a replacement level 2008. So, injuries finally brought him down for good there. We won’t add on any additional WAR, but it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to say a healthy player could have lasted longer.

So, what did we add?

• 2001: +4.4 WAR
• 2004: +2.7 WAR
• 2005: +2.9 WAR
• Total: +10.0 WAR

What happens to Frank Thomas’ rankings if he stayed health and and accumulated 10.0 more WAR? That would put him at 85.9 WAR, which would move him to #30. George Brett currently sits at #30 with 84.9. #30 puts him ahead of guys like Roberto Clemente, Joe DiMaggio, his contemporary Jeff Bagwell, Rod Carew, Ken Griffey, Robin Yount, etc.

Top 30 all time is pretty special. But really, so is #43. Frank Thomas was truly one of the greats.

There are quite a few Hall of Famers that were inducted, for the most part, because of their defense. Often, the candidacy of these players comes into question because their value has traditionally been much more difficult to quantify (particularly as decades pass since we saw them play). Now that we have Sean Smith’s WAR database, we actually can begin to quantify defensive value.

There are really two questions to answer about these players who were inducted for their defense:

1. Were they really that good defensively?
2. Was their defense value enough to compensate for their lack of offensive value?

It is possible to have a great defender who was such a bad hitter that he doesn’t make up the diffrence lost on offese. However, you can also have a defender who is so good that he not only makes up for his defensive woes, but he also propels himself into startdom, bad bat be damned. In this article, I’m assuming that the players who hold the 15 lowest career OPS marks in the Hall of Fame were inducted for the most part because of their defense. The goal here is to see if their defense made up for their lack of offense.

Bottom 15 Hall of Fame Hitters in OPS

* John Ward also accrued 25.4 WAR as a pitcher (in 2461.1 IP). Bobby Wallace compiled 5.4 WAR in 402 IP.

I’ve used most of these column heads before, but “OFF” is total runs created above average on offense (batting, baserunning, GIDP, and reach on error) while “DEF” is total runs prevented above average on defense (range, arm, double play, catching, and positional adjustment).

Let’s tackle them in order by career WAR. In the case of Ward and Wallace, I’ll include their pitcher WAR here (though it is not included in the totals above).

Brooks Robinson (69.2 WAR)
Robinson had 2848 career hits. At first glance, it’s hard to believe that for his career he was 17 runs below average on offense. Those hits were spread out over a ton of plate appearances and his OPS+ is a near-average 104. Add to that his poor baserunning and knack for grounding into double plays and he finishes slightly below average. But even today you hear people talk about his defense all the time. And his glove was worth 363 runs above average, a ridiculous number considering he doesn’t have the shortstop positional adjustment to his advantage. League average offense for a long time plus the best fielding metrics ever at his position make him a 69.2 WAR player, an awesome total that places him 57th all time among hitters.

Bobby Wallace (65.8)
I wasn’t all that familiar with Wallace until a recent post by Erik Manning compared him to George Sisler (they aren’t similar at all, but it was interesting to see two completely different players in the running for “The Greatest St. Louis Brown”). Wallace, like Robinson, hovered around league average on offense (25 runs above average) for a very long time. His sparkling defense (271 runs above average) raised his value immensely. Add in the fact that he was a two-way player who even picked up a few WAR on the mound, and Wallace undoubtedly stands up as a worthy Hall of Famer.

Ozzie Smith (64.7)
Ozzie was clearly elected because of his glove, so I was really looking forward to seeing how he measured. With the bat, he was a whopping 140 runs below average. His legs did make up for some of that and he finished at -47 runs on offense. But 386 runs above average on defense raise him way up to 64.7 WAR. That 386 is the highest combined defensive value I’ve seen thus far. Ozzie was, indeed, a wizard and deserves all the accolades he received.

John Ward (64.5)
Ward is very interesting. Hitters with 39.1 WAR aren’t typically Hall of Famers (though some are). Pitchers with 25.4 WAR generally aren’t either. But combine them? You have John Ward. Ward was slightly under average with the bat, but his speed brings his offensive value to 36 runs. He was a smooth shortstop when he wasn’t on the mound, totaling 133 runs above average. Then add the pitching value and you have a unique and very much deserving player.

Bid McPhee (57.8)
McPhee has the highest OPS on this list (highest of the lowest, got it?). The 19th century second baseman was worth 197 runs above average on offense, 150 of those with the bat. So, McPhee is not like some of the others guys on this list who simply didn’t have it offensively. However, 197 runs above average does not a Hall hitter make, so what did he do with the glove? Well, a remarkable 154 total zone gave him 196 runs above average with the glove. His total value is essentially split 50/50 and his 57.8 WAR is very much Hall-worthy, though there are many players ahead of him not enshrined.

Luis Aparicio (49.8)
Aparicio’s bat was worth -235 runs. That’s a hard spot to come back from. But his speed brings is offensive value “up” to -112 runs. Luckily, his defensive numbers live up to his reputation. He combines a positional adjustment of 164 (for playing SS for so long) with range of 144 runs. He finishes at +313 on defense, boosting him to 49.8 WAR. While that’s not a dominating total (he’s actually tied with Chet Lemon, believe it or not), it will often get you in the Hall of Fame.

Joe Tinker (49.0)
Tinker’s defensive total of 294 runs nearly matches Aparicio. What Tinker did do, though, was remain league average on offense. His total offensive value is one run above average. Aparicio did have over 4000 more plate appearances though, and therefore their WAR is very similar (just 0.8 apart).

Johnny Evers (48.3)
Does anyone else find it awesome that Tinker, Evers, and Frank Chance sit just 1.1 WAR apart for their career values? That’s just crazy. Evers, who played second while Tinker was at short, was worth 131 runs on offense and 129 runs on defense. While part of his induction may stem from his inclusion in a famous poem, he was a very compelling player who was well above average in both aspects of the game.

Dave Bancroft (46.3)
Bancroft’s offense hovered around average (+20 runs for his career). His defense, as with everyone we’ve seen so far, was excellent. His 217 runs above average push him to the mid-40s in WAR. Is he a Hall of Famer? Well, he’s certainly not the worst player in the Hall. It seems like 40 WAR at least gets you discussed while players with 60+ WAR really need to have a good reason to not be inducted. Bancroft—along with Aparicio, Evers, and Tinker—is far from a slam dunk. But he’s good enough to be talked about.

Nellie Fox (44.6)
Fox is another weak hitter (-54 runs) who made up for it a bit with his legs (total offense of -21 runs). He was worth 195 runs on defense, leading to a WAR of 44.6. Fox ranks 222nd all time among hitters, and we’re getting to the point where there are Hall of Famers with lower WAR, but they’re getting to be less prominent. Fox is tied with Hall of Famer (and Hall of Merit inductee) Earle Combs, but also is tied with turn-of-the-20th-century players Lave Coss and Herman Long. As for modern players near him in career WAR, the list includes Kirby Puckett (of course, a Hall of Famer), Lance Berkman, Gil Hodges (who can’t get in via the Veterans’ Committee), Dale Murphy (hanging around on the ballot with low percentages), and J.D. Drew.

Phil Rizzuto (41.6)
Quite often I’ve heard Rizzuto brought up as a questionable Hall of Famer. And his offense was just a bit above average (22 runs). His defense was impressive as he accumulated 226 runs with the glove. What’s most remarkable about that is his nice range of 60 runs is actually exceeded by his double play ability. His DP skills actually rated as 61 runs above average, the highest total I’ve seen. The next highest total on this list from a shortstop is Ozzie Smith with 25 runs. Does he belong? Well, it’s your call. He’s certainly on the bottom rung of the Hall. But guess what? His career WAR of 41.6 is precisely tied with… Jim Rice. So, take that as you wish.

Red Schoendienst (40.3)
Schoendienst, a second baseman, was below average offensively, with -39 runs. Defensively, he was worth 149 runs. Not a huge amount. How did he compile 40.3 WAR? He had over 9000 plate appearances. And after all, he was above average when you combine his totals. If you play a long time as an above average player, you’re going to compile quite a few wins above replacement. Remember, this is wins above replacement, not above average. The longer you perform above average, the more you keep piling up the wins. If the stat was wins above average, Red would sit at 11.0. Compare that to Robinson, who would have 34.6. Like Rizzuto, Red is near the bottom of the barrell for HOFers. I’m more likely to lean towards Rizzuto, as he packed more production into less time an anchored an infield that won seven titles.

Rabbit Maranville (38.0)
Maranville was a horrid hitter. He rates as a whopping 219 runs below average on offense. That is the lowest on this list. He did, however, compile 288 runs on defense above average. That comes out to 38.0 WAR. You’re really getting low, now. Hack Wilson is the closest HOFer to him, with 38.8. Of course, Hack has the single season RBI record, which is worth something in the “Fame” part of Hall of Fame. There are a few HOFers behind Rabbit—Pie Traynor (37.0), Roy Campanella (36.3 because of a delayed start due to the color barrier), Ross Youngs (36.2 in a career cut short at 29 because of illness), George Kell (33.5), Jim Bottomley (32.3), Chick Hafey (29.4), and Freddie Lindstrom (29.1). Of course, the last two guys on this list are also behind him.

Bill Mazeroski (27.0)
Wow, considering his reputation, I assumed Mazeroski would rank higher than this. You’ve probably heard that he’s “in the Hall of Fame for one home run.” My original thought was that we simply undervalued him because his defense wasn’t measurable by the metrics of the day. Well, it turns out he was a good defender. Really good. He was worth 204 runs above average (tops among 2B on this list). Offensively, he was worth -199 runs. That’s a net gain of 5 runs above average for his entire career. Yes, his defense was great. But it was only good enough to offset his batting woes, making him a league average player. He’s a pretty terrible Hall of Fame choice.

Ray Schalk (22.7)
I’m even willing to rank Schalk ahead of Mazeroski. I believe there are things a catcher can bring the table that we just don’t have metrics for. But we do have metrics for quite a few catcher traits, and Schalk did rank quite well (46). How good is 46? It’s good, but it’s far from legendary. It’s pretty much on par with Lance Parrish, a three-time Gold Glover. Schalk’s defense was worth a total of 131 runs, which offset his -108 offense, but not by much. I’d say Joe Torre, Ted Simmons, Gene Tenace, Wally Schang, Bill Freehan, Thurman Munson, Darrell Porter, Charlie Bennett, Parrish, and Jim Sundberg at the very least are more deserving inductees than Schalk. One could include several other catchers who eclipse Schalk in career WAR.

To me, it is pretty obvious that Mazeroski and Schalk do not belong. There’s also no question that Robinson, Wallace, Smith, Ward, and McPhee belong. Everyone else at least warrants discussion. I’d be far more inclined to induct some (like Aparicio) than others (like Maranville).

Let’s take a look at a value breakdown for those five with “no question”:

Man, those first three had some unbelievable defense, huh? This chart necessitated the inclusion of a new color—orange. Wallace and Ward had fairly significant stretches as pitchers (good ones at that). While I’m not as well-versed on pitching WAR, I believe I’m using the right figures here for pitching runs prevented above average. If not, please let me know.

Here are the last ten guys, crammed onto one graph. I’ve shrunk it here, but you can click for a larger version. Pardon me for opting to go baseball card-less on these:

Yes, Tinker does have a blue bar. It is just one pixel tall.

Interestingly, just Evers is a balanced player. From the “average offense, but good glove” crew, you have Tinker, Bancroft, Fox, Rizzuto, and Schoendiest. From the “bad bat, great glove” crew you have Aparicio, Maranville, Mazeroski, and Schalk. From the “bad bat” crew, I think the only one that makes a valid Hall case by having that good of a glove is Aparicio. You can also make a case for Tinker, Evers, Bancroft, Fox, and perhaps even Rizzuto as Hall of Famers.

If X, why not Y?

“If this guy, then why not that guy?” arguments can be dangerous in the Hall of Fame. The truth is, there are some lousy choices in there. But the fact that Ray Schalk is in the Hall of Fame should not be a free pass to induct that long list of catchers I posted above. It just means somebody screwed up.

However, there are guys who have been left out so far who rate so well defensively that they are thrust into the Hall-worthy category. Just a few of these are Bill Dahlen (75.9 WAR, +213 on offense, +279 on defense), the dynamic duo of Lou Whitaker (69.5 WAR, +249 on offense, +128 on defense) and Alan Trammell (66.8 WAR, +176 on offense, +194 on defense), Bobby Grich (67.6 WAR, +259 on offense, +136 on defense), Ron Santo (66.4 WAR, +253 on offense, +72 on defense), Graig Nettles (61.3 WAR, +92 on offense, +183 on defense), Buddy Bell (60.7 WAR +89 on offense, +203 on defense), Willie Randolph (60.4 WAR, +145 on offense, +172 on defense), Jack Glasscock (58.6 WAR, +124 on offense, +257 on defense), Ken Boyer (58.3 WAR, +186 on offense, +107 on defense), Willie Davis (57.1 WAR, +158 on offense, +88 on defense—quite a bit for an outfielder), and Robin Ventura (55.1 WAR, +112 on offense, +177 on defense).

The top five on that list, in particular, I feel should definitely be in the Hall of Fame. Let’s plot them:

Wow, they look good. They also happen to be five of the top non-Hall of Famers by WAR. Let’s add them to the end of the graph of ten lower tier Hall of Famers. They stick out like a sore thumb:

I believe Dahlen (who I admittedly didn’t know much about before starting this research), Whitaker, Grich, Trammell, and Santo are five of the top offensive players not inducted. On the graph above, Aparicio, Tinker, and Maranville at least have one column that can compete with the non-Hall of Famers, but it’s just the defensive side. Their offense is negative (except for Tinker, who is league average). They just don’t stack up to these five (and many others) who are not inducted.

While not every player inducted primarily for defense is among the most deserving candidates, some most definitely are. If you asked baseball fans to name the best defensive third baseman and shortstop of all time, I’m sure the most popular answers would be Brooks Robinson and Ozzie Smith, respectively. The fact that the numbers back that up means a couple of things—(a) that the numbers work and (b) so do our eyes.

First of all, the comparison is made by using runs created above average and runs prevented above average. Both numbers are calculated from components in Sean Smith’s WAR database.

Runs created includes batting, baserunning, grounding into double plays, and reaching on an error.

Runs prevented includes catcher rating, infield or outfield range (Total Zone), infield double play, outfield arm, and positional adjustment.

Rather than just give a percentage, I’ve designed some charts so it is easier to visualize how each player compares to others.

For the first chart, here are the six best catchers of all time, by career WAR:

Not really many surprises here, as Mike Piazza is the offensive monster and Ivan Rodriguez is the defensive monster. Johnny Bench, Carlton Fisk, and Gary Carter are all relatively balanced, with Bench and Fisk more on the offense side while Carter was stronger defensively. Berra’s split lies somewhere between Piazza and Bench. Berra played some outfield, which brings down his defensive value some.

Previously, I wrote a post that used WAR/PA and Wins Above Excellence to target catchers that have solid Hall of Fame cases. Here is a chart with those six players:

As you can see, both Joe Torre and Gene Tenaxe provided a ton of offensive value, but little (and for Torre, negative) defensive value. Both also happened to spend a ton of time at other positions, dragging down their positional adjustment, and by proxy, their WAR. Simmons was no better a catcher than Torre and Tenace, but he stayed behind the plate a lot longer, keeping his defensive value up. He still trailed by quite a bit on offense, despite his very impressive counting stats. Simmons’ beet attribute was definitely his longevity behind the plate.

Freehan and Munson are basically equals. Both are incredibly well balanced, with Freehan leaning more towards defense and Munson towards offense. Schang provided similar value to Freehan and Munson, but more of his value was on offense. My goodness, that OBP!

And of course, here’s the data I worked from for these graphs. This is a sortable table of all catchers with 30+ career WAR.

These graphs are so pretty and fun to make that I couldn’t just stop there. I have a column in the table above for Gold Gloves. I became interested in Jim Sundberg, as he had a lot of Gold Gloves, a ton of defensive value, and negative offensive value. I also became interested in Charlie Bennett when I found out he has the highest “Catch” rating of all time. In addition to those two, I looked at the rest of the top Gold Glove winners at catcher. The table below contains the rest of the catchers with four or more Gold Gloves along with Bennett and Sundberg:

Let’s plot these guys along with Bennett and Sundberg. No sense in plotting both Crandall and Johnson, since they are essentially the same player. I’ll do the others:

A few things jump out at me right away. First is that Bennett could actually hit, too. Second, My goodness Bob Boone’s offense and defense couldn’t be any further apart. Third, Mike Matheny was one terrible hitter, but he sure could catch.

Sundberg is the one that originally caught my eye, but Boone is the one that raises it to another level. I poked around at a few more catchers and Brad Ausmus was quite similar, too. Crandall and Peña aren’t as extreme as the others, but they still fit the no-hit, good-field mold.

Finally, let’s take a look at the current award winning catchers. We’ll look at the winner of the last two NL Silver Sluggers (and three total), Brian McCann, and the winner of the last two NL Gold Gloves, Yadier Molina. We’ll also take the winner of the last two AL Silver Sluggers (3 overall) and the last two Gold Gloves. Yup, it’s the same guy—Joe Mauer.

I think it’s neat how these are three very different players. Molina is on a Boone-esque track. Seriously, this guy has racked up a ton of defensive value very early on. McCann hits well for a catcher and is adequate behind the plate. He actually rates as a slightly below average catcher, but his positional adjustment means he’s still providing value as a receiver. Mauer is simply other-worldly. I shouldn’t anoint him the best catcher every, but I think in a few years we just might be saying that.

Well, that was fun. I think my next value breakdown graphs will take a look at how the many borderline Hall-worthy third basemen compare.

Comparatively, just six pitchers have reached 100 WAR (and among those, only Roger Clemens and Tom Seaver were active after 1930.

Here is a list of the active WAR leaders (sifted from Sean Smith’s WAR database). How many future Hall of Famers do you see?

Position Players

Pitchers

I know this is my favorite part of every post, so let me jump right in with the data. As usual, it’s sortable by clicking the column headers.

Wins Above Replacement per 600 Plate Appearances

You would expect Johnny Bench (4.99), Mike Piazza (4.61), Gary Carter (4.47), Yogi Berra (4.45), Ivan Rodriguez (4.16), and Carlton Fisk (4.15) to rank highly. After all, they are the top six in career WAR for catchers (just in a different order). However, in WAR/600 PA there are quite a few players sprinkled in between them.

Five players actually rank higher than Bench. Joe Mauer (6.71) is far and away the best, though he has less than 3000 career at bats and has yet to experience a decline. The truth is, though, that he’s probably going to wind up as the best catcher ever. Hall of Famer Buck Ewing follows Mauer at 5.39. He played in the 19th century with shorter schedules and therefore compiled “only” 5764 plate appearances.

Next is an interesting one—Gene Tenace. Tenace doesn’t have overwhelming traditional stats (.241, 201 HR, 674 RBI), but his WAR (48.6) is impressive and his WAR/600 PA (5.34) is even more impressive. Charlie Bennett (5.24), like Ewing, played in the 19th century and had very few plate appearances (4310). He also happened to own the best catcher rating in history. Hall of Famer Mickey Cochrane (5.07) ranks right after Bennett and before Bench.

Two Hall of Famers—Roger Bresnahan (4.73) and Bill Dickey (4.65)—rank in between Bench and Piazza. HOFer Roy Campanella (4.57) ranks between Piazza and Carter. Pretty much tied with Carter and Berra is Thurman Munson. Munson isn’t simply talked up by the New York press. He very much deserves to be in the Hall of Fame conversation.

Three players sit between Berra and Ivan Rodriguez. One is active (Jorge Posada, 4.24), one is enshrined (Gabby Hartnett, 4.20), and one isn’t in the Hall (Wally Schang, 4.19). Behind Pudge is… well, Pudge Fisk.

Here are the top four eligible non-Hall of Famers by WAR/600 PA:

1. Gene Tenace
2. Charlie Bennett
3. Thurman Munson
4. Wally Schang

And to recap the career WAR leaders I wrote about last time:

The highest WAR for eligible Non-Hall of Fame catchers:

• Joe Torre (55.5)
• Ted Simmons (50.8)
• Gene Tenace (48.6)
• Wally Schang (43.7)
• Bill Freehan (43.4)
• Thurman Munson (43.3)

There’s Tenace again. No matter what list I build, Tenace is near the top.

So, what happened to Torre, Simmons, and Freehan when you break up their WAR by 600 PA? Freehan (3.82) and Torre (3.81) aren’t far from the group I mention above. Simmons, however, comes in pretty low at 3.18. He’s closer to Jim Sundberg and Lance Parrish than he is to Joe Torre and Bill Freehan.

And what about Bennett? Well, he’s a tough one. I missed him the first time through this research, but he’s compelling. The main reason is his “Catch” rating of 155, which happens to be the best of all time. He also did this in only 4310 plate appearances, which explains his low career total. He never actually reached 400 plate appearances in any season, which drastically cuts down his career totals. Basically, he exhibited similar dominance to Gene Tenace, with the difference being that Tenace’s dominance was through offense while Bennett’s was through defense. Also, Tenace (who had very few plate appearances himself) still outdistanced Bennett. If it is questionable if Tenace has the playing time to be a Hall of Famer, it looks like Bennett, as good as he was, simply falls short.

Let’s look at another metric…

Wins Above Excellence (WAE)

For a refresher, Wins Above Excellence adds up all WAR totals above 3.0. Instead of just WAE, I’ve called this WAE3. Since 2.0 WAR is essentially league average, I think 4.0 might be a better baseline for “excellence”. So, I count this too (as WAE4). I also think it is useful to take a look at seasons above 6.0 WAR, so you can really get a sense of how often that player produced MVP-type numbers. I call this WAE6, but you can also think of it as “Wins Above MVP-level”.

I’ve taken a look at the Top 10 for each of these WAE metrics. Here are the non-Hall of Famers on those lists:

WAE3:

• Ted Simmons (8th)
• Gene Tenace (10th)

WAE4:

• Joe Torre (8th)
• Gene Tenace (10th)

WAE6:

• Darrell Porter (5th)
• Bill Freehan (9th)
• Joe Torre (10th)

Hey, there’s our friend Tenace rounding out the WAE3 and WAE4 lists again. The WAE6 list has some different players on there. Porter is only on there for one mammoth year while Freehan is there for a 2-year stretch that culminated in the 1968 championship. Torre is on there for two seasons spaced five years apart. One of them came exclusively as a third baseman.

What’s it all mean?

So, who’s deserving of induction? Well, I’m not quite ready to say that yet. This is an ongoing look at catcher metrics. But there are a couple things I do know.

First, here’s a list of catchers who are currently enshrined who may not deserve to be:

• Ray Schalk (22.7 WAR): You really wonder how this guy got elected. Because he caught four no-hitters? Or maybe it’s because he still holds the record for 221 double players as a catcher. He was an excellent receiver, with 46 “Catch” runs above average. But still, Jim Sundberg would be a much better choice.
• Rick Ferrell (22.9 WAR): All I got with Ferrell is that he retired as the all time leader in games caught. Perhaps that was enough to get him in? Ferrell was worth the same number of batting runs (-7) as his brother Wes. Wes was a pitcher.
• Ernie Lombardi (39.0 WAR), perhaps: I don’t have much of an issue with him being in. He did win a pair of batting titles and a MVP, after all. But he’s not in the Hall of Merit and his career WAR is a bit low. He’s certainly a borderline guy.

And these catchers are definitely worthy of being in the discussion about who else deserves induction:

• Joe Torre: A unique case because he played many positions. But his career WAR is pretty impressive.
• Ted Simmons: Has the baseball card numbers, so I’m surprised he’s not already in. He and Torre look the best on this list at a glance because they had longevity. But WAR actually cuts him down a notch.
• Gene Tenace: WAR loves this guy. So does WAR/600 PA. And WAE. And… everything but the traditional numbers. And voters.
• Wally Schang,
• Bill Freehan,
• and Thurman Munson: These three are essentially tied in career WAR. Freehan trails in WAR/600 PA but had the best individual seasons. Munson’s peak is right there with Freehan while Schang spread his WAR out over consistent solid seasons. None of them have the traditional numbers needed to get in, with each having right around 1500 hits. Freehan did have 200 homers while Munson had 113 and Schang tripled (90) more than he homered (59). As for awards, Munson (MVP, ROY, 3 Gold Gloves, 7 All Stars) and Freehan (11 All Star, 5 Gold Gloves, Top 2 and Top 3 MVP finishes) fare better than Schang (peaked at 8th in MVP voting, played before there were All Star games and Gold Gloves).

As tempted as I am to put Bennett on that list because of his defensive prowess, his lack of playing time and low career totals would stick out like a sore thumb in the Hall.

Like third basemen, it seems that nobody from the non-Hall catchers group wants to stand out over the rest. Joe Torre possibly deserves induction because he’s likely the best catcher not enshrined. But even his case is flawed since less than half of his games were spent behind the plate. And his time at less important positions drags his WAR down.

Case and point, these eligible players had a higher career WAR than Joe Torre and are not inducted (* will be eligible for the next vote):

1. Jeff Bagwell*
2. Bill Dahlen
3. Lou Whitaker
4. Barry Larkin
5. Edgar Martinez
6. Larry Walker*
7. Alan Trammell
8. Ron Santo
9. Rafael Palmeiro*
10. Tim Raines
11. Roberto Alomar
12. Mark McGwire
13. Reggie Smith
14. Dwight Evans
15. Graig Nettles
16. Dick Allen
17. Keith Hernandez
18. Buddy Bell
19. Sal Bando
20. Willie Randolph
21. Jimmy Wynn
22. Sherry Magee
23. Jack Glasscock
24. Ken Boyer
25. Will Clark
26. Willie Davis
27. Darrell Evans
28. John Olerud*

That’s 28 guys, not including the active and retired-but-not-yet-eligible guys (of which there are two catchers, Mike Piazza and Ivan Rodriguez). The fact that you have to go so deep into the list to find a catcher means one of two things:

1. There are too many catchers in the Hall of Fame already. or
2. Catchers simply aren’t capable of compiling the career WAR of other positions and need to be evaluated on a different scale.

I truly believe that #1 is not the case. So, that means I need to look into #2. But I’ll save that for another time…

* Update: I missed Charlie Bennett in my first round of research. He was a 19th century catcher who not only happens to be in the Hall of Merit, but also owns the best “Catch” rating in the history of baseball. This post has been edited accordingly.

Some good stuff here.

A few years ago, back when I was armed with “advanced metrics” such as OPS+, I wrote a long post trying to figure out which catchers were Hall of Fame snubs. In that article, I decided that Wally Schang, Bill Freehan, and Ted Simmons deserved a closer look for induction.

The highest WAR for eligible Non-Hall of Fame catchers:

• Joe Torre (55.5) *
• Ted Simmons (50.8)
• Gene Tenace (48.6)
• Wally Schang (43.7)
• Bill Freehan (43.4)
• Thurman Munson (43.3)

* Torre caught in less than half of his career games, but catcher is his most often-fielded position.

So, turns out WAR somewhat supports those earlier findings. Torre is tricky because of all the positions he played. But one nice thing about catcher WAR is they are docked for time spent at other positions (via the positional adjustment). Tenace, like Sal Bando, is simply better than I thought. Tenace is talked about in some Hall discussions, and it looks like he sits right on that bubble.

Schang and Freehan rank pretty well (especially considering their career plate appearance totals are only in the 6000s). It’s music to a Yankee fan’s ears that Munson happens to be right there with Freehan as well (with only 5800 PAs, too). While Freehan’s Gold Gloves and reputation make him out to be an elite defender, the data shows him as simply a bit above average. Freehan’s “Catch” total is 26 runs above average—compare that with Pudge Rodriguez (155), Bench (97), Carter (106), Munson (34), or Fisk (30). Heck, Carter once had 27 in a single season. If you’re curious, Piazza was -61.

Wait, what’s this “Catch” portion of WAR?

Catch – Catcher ratings based on stolen bases allowed, caught stealing, errors, wild pitches, passed balls, and pickoffs. Catchers are compared to the yearly league average, with the averages splits catching lefthanded and righthanded pitchers

Maybe there’s something that “Catch” doesn’t take into account that Freehan excelled at (like pitch calling).

Among the eligible Non-Hall guys on my short list, Torre, Simmons, and Freehan are in the Hall of Merit. Tenace, Schang, and Munson are not. I’m kind of surprised Schang isn’t. With his high OBP, at first glance he’s kind of a textbook Hall of Merit guy (thinking in terms of Heinie Groh).

Simmons is in the Hall of Merit, but was banished from the Hall of Fame ballot after just one try. No Hall of Fame catchers have more hits (2472) or doubles (483) than Simmons. Just Yogi Berra has more RBI than Simmons while only Johnny Bench, Carlton Fisk, and Gary Carter hit more home runs. Simmons was also an 8-time All Star. How is he not in the Hall?

He had many impressive career totals and the fact that he’s not in is a bit of a headscratcher. However, when you start looking at WAR, you see that Simmons only rates 2.2 wins ahead of Tenace. Add to that the fact that Tenace had 5,525 plate appearances to Simmons’ 9,685 and it Simmons actually looks better in terms of old school stats. What does this mean about the Hall of Fame cases for Simmons and Tenace? Well, that’s just one more thing I’l dig into further soon.

Some other observations from this table:

• Two Hall of Famers don’t even make this list: Ray Schalk (22.7 WAR) and Rick Ferrell (22.9 WAR). Add them both together and you don’t even get Ted Simmons (50.8 WAR).
• There are nine positions on the field (if you include DH). I can’t believe we don’t see our first catcher until #52. It seems that, like relief pitchers, catchers have a hard time accruing career WAR.
• The catchers that appear at the top, as expected, had long careers with a lot of plate appearances. Buck Ewing’s appearance at 51.8 WAR is impressive because it took him just 5764 plate appearances to do so.
• In another post, I introduced WAR/9 IP in order to see which relievers packed a lot of value into a relatively small amount of playing time. It might be useful to see WAR/600 PA (or similar) for catchers since the playing time can vary so much.
• Of course, Wins Above Excellence will be handy to find dominant seasons. Expect to see plenty of WAE tables in the future.

More on catchers soon!

* Update: I missed Charlie Bennett in my first round of research. He was a 19th century catcher who not only happens to be in the Hall of Merit, but also owns the best “Catch” rating in the history of baseball.

When Sean Smith introduced WAE, he added up any WAR above 3.0. In my third base analysis, I did 3.0, 4.0, and 6.0 to get a sense of both “excellence” and “awesomeness”. Relievers simply don’t pile up high-WAR seasons like hitters, so I’ve included columns for 2.0, 3.0, and 4.0. It is pretty rare for a reliever to pick up over 4.0 WAR in a season (unless you’re Mariano Rivera).

Here’s a table of the top relievers by WAR with their WAE2, WAE3, and WAE4.

Note: Hoyt Wilhelm, Rich Gossage, and Lindy McDaniel each had a season removed because the vast majority of appearances that year came as a starter. Only Dennis Eckersley’s relief career (from 1987 on) was included.

Interesting.

On the WAE2, WAE3, and WAE4 lists, the Top 5 (of each of them, but in varying order) are:

• Mariano Rivera
• Rich Gossage
• John Hiller
• Bruce Sutter
• Dan Quisenberry

When factoring long-term dominance (career WAR) and demonstration of excellence (WAE), it becomes abundantly clear that not only is Mariano Rivera the best reliever ever, but Rich Gossage is quite clearly the second best reliever ever. The remaining three guys on this 5-player list are interesting. John Hiller is probably the most underrated relief pitcher of all time. He simply never gets talked about. Bruce Sutter is in the Hall of Fame, though some question whether or not he is deserving. I have long said that he is very much the equivalent of Dan Quisenbrerry, though Quiz dropped off after one Hall ballot appearance. WAR and WAE both show that they were, in fact, quite similar.

Like WAR, WAE isn’t particularly kind to Dennis Eckersley’s relief career, rating him similarly to pitchers like Tom Henke and John Franco (great pitchers, but not Hall of Famers). Eck’s career is so weird though. You have to remember that he didn’t become a reliever until long after his prime. He also pitched into a pretty advanced age, so in his last few seasons, he wasn’t used in very high leverage situations, which detracts from his WAR.

Lindy McDaniel and Hoyt Wilhelm actually ranked the opposite of how I thought they would, by WAE. Wilhelm put his WAR together through multiple solid but unspectacular seasons. McDaniel looks like he was more of a hit-or-miss guy, either having a great year or one that provided negligible value. While McDaniel had six relief seasons of 2.0+ WAR (plus one with 2.5 as a starter), he also had eleven seasons of 1.0 or less WAR. Wilhelm loses a tremendous 7.4 WAR season because it came as a starter. He also had a ten year stretch where each season fell between 1.0 and 3.0 WAR. Consistently solid, but without a couple of the really nice seasons McDaniel put together.

I do love reading articles about the biggest Hall of Fame snubs. Joe Posnanski recently wrote a “Snubs” article featuring players in the Hall of Merit who aren’t in the Hall of Fame. Wait, what’s the Hall of Merit? The Hall of Merit is curated by Baseball Think Factory. The description:

What is the Baseball Hall of Merit? A pantheon conceived of by our founder and commissioner Joe Dimino as an alternative to the Baseball Hall of Fame located in Cooperstown. Our purpose is to identify the best players in baseball history and thereby identify the omissions and errors that can be found in the other venerable institution.

Like catchers and relief pitchers, I’ve thought a lot about why third basemen trail behind others in terms of Hall of Fame population. Posnanski’s article actually mentions how third base is the one position that has the most Hall of Merit members not in the “real” Hall of Fame. What gives?

Armed with Wins Above Replacement and Wins Above Excellence as my tools, let’s take a look!

There are six third baseman in the Hall of Merit who are not in the Hall of Fame. They are (with career WAR):

• Ron Santo (66.4)
• Graig Nettles (61.3)
• Ken Boyer (58.3)
• Darrell Evans (57.0)
• Stan Hack (54.8)
• Heinie Groh (46.4)

While that’s a nice list, it leaves out two third baseman that actually ranked really well in terms of Wins Above Replacement—Buddy Bell (60.7) and Sal Bando (60.5). Adding them to the list, we have eight players in our conversation.

Looking at just those eight players by WAR, it becomes apparent why the Hall of Fame has an issue with voting these guys in. First of all, Ron Santo sits above the rest just about any way you look at it. He just might be the best offensive player not enshrined. It’s a shame. After him, however, from 61.3 to 57.0 (just a 4.3 WAR span), we have the next five players—Nettles, Bell, Bando, Boyer, and Evans. While there’s no excuse for Santo not being in the Hall of Fame, it seems that beyond Santo, nobody stands out from the crowd. Five guys that close together is a lot. It’s tough to put them all in, so voters have kept them all out.

Since I already added Buddy Bell and Sal Bando to the group, I felt I needed to make the table complete. So, three players—Bob Elliot, Ron Cey, and Toby Harrah—rank in between Hack and Groh while Robin Ventura actually ranks ahead of Hack.

The truth is, many of these players compiled great career WAR marks through consistent solid seasons. The Hall of Fame is as much about a demonstration of excellence as a long career, so Wins Above Excellence becomes a good way to help us distinguish between the third basemen.

In the below table, I’ve listed all of these players, ranked by WAR. I’ve added three columns for Wins Above Excellence—one that calculates all WAR over 3.0 runs (WAE3), over 4.0 runs (WAE4), and over 6.0 runs (WAE6). Sean Smith used 3.0 runs when he introduced WAE. I’m not sure, but it feels (to me) like 4.0 might be a better baseline. I included WAE6 because a 6.0 WAR season is a special season and it’s good to see who was capable of that.

And here’s the table (it’s sortable!).

In both WAE3 and WAE4, the top six goes:

1. Ron Santo
2. Sal Bando
3. Ken Boyer
4. Graig Nettles
5. Buddy Bell
6. Robin Ventura

In WAE6, Darrell Evans jumps to 3rd while Robin Ventura drifts off a bit from the pack. Evans’ leap was somewhat surprising since he is in the lower half for both WAE3 and WAE4.

What does this mean?

It’s still crazy how close together the career value of these players are. Ron Santo is obviously the leader of the pack in every single measure. He should absolutely be a Hall of Famer. Judging by WAR and the various flavors of WAE, if I was forced to rank someone second place here… it’s gonna be Sal Bando. And that surprises me. He’s been snubbed by the Hall of Fame and the Hall of Merit.

It’s fairly obvious to see why a guy like Buddy Bell is underrated. The vast majority of his career value came from his defense. While Bando was an above average defender (according to Total Zone), his offense was the major part of his game. It’s clear Bando is underrated because he is one of those guys with a lower batting average and an OBP about a hundred points higher than the batting average. His rates (.254/.352/.408) don’t look all that impressive. But in his era, that comes out to an OPS+ of 119. Add that to the fact that he did everything at an above average level and he played a position with an above average positional afdjustment, you get a player with a lot of value.

What I find the most remarkable about Bando is that he compiled this value in just 16 seasons (12 full seasons). That hurts his career totals (1790 hits, 242 home runs). But it also explains why his single season WAR totals were so high. That’s a lot of career value to pack into a relatively short time period. Another thing that jumped out at me about Bando was when I was looking for 3.0+ WAR seasons, all of his (11) were consecutive. Of all his full seasons, just one was weak—his last.

Is Sal Bando a Hall of Famer?

I don’t think I can endorse the induction of Sal Bando. And by saying that, I suppose I can’t endorse the induction of the rest of the players on this list (except for Santo). While Bando’s career WAR was great, he does miss that “Fame” factor that so many voters focus on first (and I’ll agree is needed in some form). It’s not the Hall of WAR or the Hall of Stats. It is the Hall of Fame. I think stats are a huge part of it, but Bando is missing that “something extra”.

Bando never won any kind of award, though he did finish in the Top 5 in MVP three times. He didn’t win any Gold Gloves (blame Brooks Robinson for that), though he was known as a steady fielder. I know that can be a flawed argument, but that goes a long way to explaining why he’s been snubbed. He led the league in games four times (and plate appearances once), but other than that he only led the league in doubles once and total bases once (both in 1973). In many important stats, he ranks somewhere between 200th and 240th all time (except walks, which he ranks 100th).

Bando was a great player—perhaps even the second-best third baseman not in the Hall of Fame. But the fact that he’s so close to about a half dozen players not inducted means one of two things—either none should be in or all should probably be in. Unfortunately for Bando, it looks like the former will hold true.

So anyway, how ’bout that Ron Santo?