An open letter to the MLB Hall of Fame

Bill James has published An open letter to the MLB Hall of Fame about Dwight Evans' rightful place in Cooperstown.

Look, I have not said that either Parker or Cedeno does not belong in the Hall of Fame. With a career won-lost contribution of 262-153, Cesar Cedeno was, in my view, a better player than many Hall of Fame outfielders, and there is a good case to be made for him as a Hall of Famer. With a career won-lost contribution of 300-201, Dave Parker is right on the boundary of being a completely qualified Hall of Famer in my opinion. He was a great player, and if he'd had one more outstanding season, one more outstanding month, I think there would be no doubt that he belonged in the Hall of Fame. Even without that, I think he was probably a Hall of Fame–caliber star.

But of the three, it is my opinion that the most worthy Hall of Fame candidate was Dwight Evans. With a career won-lost contribution of 323-183, Dwight Evans is comfortably above the Hall of Fame line.

What can I say? I agree, and have agreed for years. When the Jim Rice HoF debate was going on, I said that

Career OBP: Evans .370, Rice .352
Career OPS: Evans .840, Rice .856
When you take into account that OBP is more valuable than SLG, and that Evans played over 600 more games of better defense at a tougher defensive position, I think it's pretty clear that Evans had a signficantly better career than Rice did. BP's WARP3 (Wins Above Replacement Player, adjusted for all-time) has Evans at 119 and Rice at 89.2. Bill James Win Shares had Evans with 347 and Rice with 282.

As to the peak, that's debatable.

Rice Evans
158 163
154 156
148 149
141 147
137 137

Evans' best year was 1981, which makes it tough to evaluate, but it's a legitimate discussion as to peak, and a no-brainer as to career.

It's too late, of course, unless the Veterans Committee some day does the right thing. James' support is the kind of thing that could bring Evans' case to the attention of that committee, though I don't know how long he has to wait before they can consider him.

Anyway, James agrees with me, and it's a good piece...

World Series Preview

• The Boston Red Sox are going to the World Series for the 11th time overall, 5th time in the last 41 years, and 2nd time in the last 4 years. The Colorado Rockies are making their first appearance in the "Fall Classic."



• The objective rankings that I've been tracking this post-season...
  
  Bill James Playoff Predictor:
  
  1. 1 pt to the lead team for each half-game in the standings (BOS - 14)
  2. 3 pts to the team that scored more runs (BOS - 3)
  3. 14 pts to the team with fewer doubles (COL - 14)
  4. 12 pts to the team with more triples (COL - 12)
  5. 10 pts to the team with more home runs (COL - 10)
  6. 8 pts to the team with the lower team batting average (BOS - 8)
  7. 8 pts to the team that committed fewer errors (COL - 8)
  8. 7 pts to the team that turned more double plays (COL - 7)
  9. 7 pts to the team that walked more batters (COL - 7)
  10. 19 pts to the team that had more shutouts (BOS - 19)
  11. 15 pts to the team whose ERA was lower (BOS - 15)
  12. 12 pts to the team that has been in postseason most recently or
      went further (BOS - 12)
  13. 12 pts to the team that won season series (COL - 12)
  
  BOS - 71, COL - 70
  
  Essentially a tie.
  
  
  Baseball Prospectus "Secret Sauce" rankings:
  (Overall ranking is the sum of rankings in various pitching/defense categories, so lower is better)
  

  Boston (7.5) over Colorado (57)




• The Baseball Prospectus Playoff Odds Report has the Red Sox as the 2nd-least likely series winner for the whole post-season. The unlikeliest? Colorado vs. Philadelphia.



• Nice preview sheet from the Washington Post...



• David Pinto's preview at The Sporting News. And if you haven't already got his Baseball Musings page linked, well, now's the time to do it.



• Chris Lynch doesn't think that the Rockies pitching rotation makes sense.



• Will Carroll's World Series Health Report has everyone , other than Wakefield, ready to go. "If the World Series is supposed to be the two best teams playing their best, we just might get that this year."



• On September 15, if anyone had asked which of these teams were the better team, the question would have been laughable. The Red Sox record was 13 games better, they had scored 50 more runs, and allowed 100 fewer. Since that day, however, the Rockies have taken the field 22 times, and won 21 games. It's a historic run, made more historic by when it occurred. One more loss in the first 15 games of that stretch, and Colorado would have been golfing for the last three weeks.
  
  
  
  

  Boston Red Sox vs. Colorado Rockies - 2007

  Through September 15:
  AL	W	L	RS	RA	Pythagorean %	Pyth Wins	"Luck"
  Boston	90	59	804	602	.629	94	-4
  Colorado	76	72	758	707	.532	79	-3
  Since September 15
  Boston	13	10	133	91	.667	15	-2
  Colorado	21	1	136	67	.785	17	4
  Totals (include playoffs)
  Boston	103	69	937	693	.635	109	-6
  Colorado	97	73	894	774	.566	96	1

  
  
  Here's what we know about winning streaks, however - they all end. I guess we don't know that about this one, but given that every one we've ever seen has ended, I think that this one is a good bet to end, also. The Colorado Rockies, I feel confident in saying, have not lost for the last time in franchise history.
  
  And they should have lost a couple more times in that stretch. Trevor Hoffman had a bad inning at a bad time, and Matt Holliday has still not scored the winning run in that game. Everything that could have gone wrong for the Arizona Diamonbacks, things that they could control and things that they could not, went wrong. So it is safe to say that the Colorado Rockies are probably the hottest team ever to start a World Series.
  
  The question is, does that mean anything? Looking at the course of the season, it seems to me that Boston was a better team than Colorado this year, and not just by a little. I'd rather have Josh Beckett on the mound tonight than anyone else in baseball, and what happens to the Rockies if, following 8 days off, they come out rusty and get shut down? They're 7-0 in the playoffs. What happens to them if they fall behind in a series?
  
  But it's baseball. The fact that streaks end doesn't mean that it will end tonight. I can (and do) think that the Red Sox are the better team, but that doesn't mean that I think that they'll win. I think that they'll play, and they'll win or they'll lose. It's a fools errand to predict the outcome of a 7-game series.



• By VORP, Colorado's offense was better than Boston's. Boston's pitching was better than Colorado's.
  
  
  

  Boston Red Sox vs. Colorado Rockies - 2007

  	Vorp - offense	Vorp - Pitching	Total
  Boston	290.2	244.3	534.5
  Colorado	291.3	198.5	489.8

  
  By EQA, the Red Sox offense is better.
  
  
  

  Boston Red Sox vs. Colorado Rockies - 2007

  Team	EQA	EQR	R-Act	R-Est	Diff
  BOS-A	0.27	783.6	867	904	-37
  COL-N	0.263	750.9	851	842	9

  
  The offense is actually not as close as it looks, at least by VORP, as Boston's numbers include David Ortiz as a DH, and Colorado's includes their pitchers. Boston's runs scored total was significantly less than the offensive component performance would lead you to expect. All told, it looks like the offenses are pretty even.



• Boston's starting pitching looks significantly better. Looking at some of the more advanced Sabrmetric stats from Baseball Prospectus:
  
  
  

  Boston Red Sox vs. Colorado Rockies - 2007

  	NAME	TEAM	LG	YEAR	GS	IP	E(W)	E(L)	SNLVAR	E(Win%)
  Boston	Josh Beckett	BOS	AL	2007	30	200.7	13.7	7.8	6.2	0.636
  Boston	Daisuke Matsuzaka	BOS	AL	2007	32	204.7	13.4	10.7	5.1	0.556
  Boston	Curt Schilling	BOS	AL	2007	24	151	10	7.3	4.3	0.578
  Boston	Jon Lester	BOS	AL	2007	11	63	3.8	3.4	1.1	0.532
  	NAME	TEAM	LG	YEAR	GS	IP	E(W)	E(L)	SNLVAR	E(Win%)
  Colorado	Jeff Francis	COL	NL	2007	34	215.3	14.7	10.7	5.4	0.578
  Colorado	Josh Fogg	COL	NL	2007	29	165.7	9.9	10.7	2.3	0.48
  Colorado	Aaron Cook	COL	NL	2007	25	166	9.1	10	2.8	0.477
  Colorado	Ubaldo Jimenez	COL	NL	2007	15	82	5.3	5.1	1.8	0.513

  
  



• The Baseball Crank thinks that "Boston is clearly the stronger team, but the Rockies' hot streak is just impossible to project one way or another..."



• I repeat - it's a fools errand to predict the outcome of a 7-game series. The better team might win, the better team might lose, and the result of this series won't tell us which is which.

Championship series - objective ranking wrap-up

I ran the Bill James Playoff Predictor for the Division Series and the Championship Series games. I also looked at the Baseball Prospectus objective ranking system. Here's the wrap-up for the post-season so far. World Series post later today or tomorrow...

Bill James Playoff Predictor was 1-1 in the Championship Series round.

Right:
Boston (100) over Cleveland (39)

Wrong:
Arizona (77) lost to Colorado (30)



Baseball Prospectus' "Secret Sauce", which was 1-3 in the DS round, was 1-1 in the CS round.


Right:

Boston (7.5) over Cleveland (48)

Wrong:

Arizona (29) lost to Colorado (57)


For the post-season so far:

• Bill James Playoff Predictor
  Boston (79) beat Los Angeles of Anaheim (33)
  Arizona (92) beat Chicago (33)
  Boston (100) over Cleveland (39)
  
  Wrong:
  New York (83) lost to Cleveland (60)
  Arizona (77) lost to Colorado (30)
  
  Tie (essentially):
  Colorado (58) beat Philadelphia (59)




• Baseball Prospectus' "Secret Sauce"
  Right (lower is better):
  Boston (7.5) beat Los Angeles of Anaheim (27.5)
  Boston (7.5) over Cleveland (48)
  
  Wrong:
  New York (32.5) lost to Cleveland (48)
  Arizona (29) beat Chicago (22)
  Colorado (57) beat Philadelphia (49)
  Colorado (57) over Arizona (29)

DS wrap-up - Bill James Playoff Predictor

How did the Bill James Playoff Predictor do in the Division Series round? It was 2-1-1 (I'm calling the 58-59 Rockies-Phillies prediction a tie.)

Right:
Boston (79) beat Los Angeles of Anaheim (33)
Arizona (92) beat Chicago (33)

Wrong:
New York (83) lost to Cleveland (60)

Tie (essentially):
Colorado (58) beat Philadelphia (59)

It was 2-0 on series where the advantage was over 2:1, 0-1-1 when the advantage was less than 1.5:1.

While it's just a toy, curve-fitting that doesn't necessarily mean much, it had a much better first round than the Baseball Prospectus "Secret Sauce" rankings did. (The sauce "consists of three statistics within the category of pitching and defense — Equivalent Strikeouts Per Nine innings (EqK9), Fielding Runs Above Average (FRAA), and Closer Performance (as measured by the WXRL of the pitcher with the most save opportunities) — that have been demonstrated to have a predictive relationship with success in the post-season.")

Right (lower is better):
Boston (7.5) beat Los Angeles of Anaheim (27.5)

Wrong:
New York (32.5) lost to Cleveland (48)
Arizona (29) beat Chicago (22)
Colorado (57) beat Philadelphia (49)

Baseball playoff predictions

I don't have time to do a good pre-post-season play post, but there are a couple things that I want to get out.

• There are a couple of pretty silly pieces of commentary on the SI.com website.
  
  John Donovan: "If Daisuke Matsuzaka pitches the way he's supposed to pitch -- the way he's paid to pitch -- then the Sox win this series handily. But I'm not convinced that his last outing trumps his previous 10 starts (6.10 ERA). "
  
  Well, that's not really silly. But 10 starts is a pretty poor sample for what he's doing. The first five games in that 10 game stretch saw him average over 6 innings per start with an ERA of 3.62. The next five is where it got ugly, with a 9.11 ERA.
  
  
  Jacob Luft: "Angels over Red Sox in four: Dice-K and Okajima carried the Red Sox for much of the year, but they look gassed right now. I don't understand why they went with Dice-K over Schilling in Game 2 and potentially Game 5. That will be their undoing. "
  
  I don't know how to break this to Jacob, but if the series really does end in four, Matsuzaka starting game two won't have been their undoing. In a four game series, Matsuzaka will start once and Schilling will start once, no matter which of them pitches game two.



• In one of his abstracts, Bill James produced a play-off predictor system, based on the playoff that had occurred up to that point. Some of it makes sense, some doesn't, and I'm sure that it's less relevant than it was. But it is kind of a fun toy, so here it is, Red Sox vs. Angels:
  
  1. 1 pt to the lead team for each half-game in the standings (BOS - 4)
  2. 3 pts to the team that scored more runs (BOS - 3)
  3. 14 pts to the team with fewer doubles (LAA - 14)
  4. 12 pts to the team with more triples (BOS - 12)
  5. 10 pts to the team with more home runs (BOS - 10)
  6. 8 pts to the team with the lower team batting average (BOS - 8)
  7. 8 pts to the team that committed fewer errors (BOS - 8)
  8. 7 pts to the team that turned more double plays (LAA - 7)
  9. 7 pts to the team that walked more batters (BOS - 7)
  10. 19 pts to the team that had more shutouts (LAA - 0)
  11. 15 pts to the team whose ERA was lower (BOS - 15)
  12. 12 pts to the team that has been in postseason most recently or (LAA - 12)
      went further (LAA - 0)
  13. 12 pts to the team that won season series (BOS - 12)
  
  Totals - Boston - 79, LAA - 33
  
  The Bill James Playoff predictor likes the Red Sox in this series.



• So do I.



• That said, I want to reiterate my fundamental position that a 5-7 game series tells you nothing about the relative virtues of the competing teams. I'd expect the significantly better team to win 3 of 5 significantly less than 100% of the time. Either team could win this series. Either team could lose this series. Either team could sweep this series. That goes for all the rest of them, too.



• My baseball pundit contract requires, though, that I make predictions. This enables me to gloat about things I get right. Anything I get wrong, well, there are sure to be mitigating circumstances that we'll enable me to claim victory on them, too. ;-)
  
  So here they are - the Lyford predictions for the ALDS and NLDS Series:
  
  Boston over Anaheim
  New York over Cleveland
  Philadelphia over Colorado
  Chicago over Arizona

Update:

What the heck - here are the Play-off predictors for the other three series...

Yankees-Indians:
1. 1 pt to the lead team for each half-game in the standings (CLE - 4)
2. 3 pts to the team that scored more runs (NYY - 3)
3. 14 pts to the team with fewer doubles (CLE - 14)
4. 12 pts to the team with more triples (NYY - 12)
5. 10 pts to the team with more home runs (NYY - 10)
6. 8 pts to the team with the lower team batting average (CLE - 8)
7. 8 pts to the team that committed fewer errors (NYY - 8)
8. 7 pts to the team that turned more double plays (NYY - 7)
9. 7 pts to the team that walked more batters (NYY - 7)
10. 19 pts to the team that had more shutouts (CLE - 19)
11. 15 pts to the team whose ERA was lower (CLE - 15)
12. 12 pts to the team that has been in postseason most recently or
    went further (NYY - 12)
13. 12 pts to the team that won season series (NYY - 12)

NYY - 83, CLE - 60



Cubs-Diamondbacks:
1. 1 pt to the lead team for each half-game in the standings (ARI - 10)
2. 3 pts to the team that scored more runs (CHC - 3)
3. 14 pts to the team with fewer doubles (ARI - 14)
4. 12 pts to the team with more triples (ARI - 12)
5. 10 pts to the team with more home runs (ARI - 10)
6. 8 pts to the team with the lower team batting average (ARI - 8)
7. 8 pts to the team that committed fewer errors (CHC - 8)
8. 7 pts to the team that turned more double plays (ARI - 7)
9. 7 pts to the team that walked more batters (CHC - 7)
10. 19 pts to the team that had more shutouts (ARI - 19)
11. 15 pts to the team whose ERA was lower (CHC - 15)
12. 12 pts to the team that has been in postseason most recently or
    went further (ARI - 0)
13. 12 pts to the team that won season series (ARI - 12)

CHC - 33, ARI - 92


Phillies-Rockies
1. 1 pt to the lead team for each half-game in the standings (COL - 2)
2. 3 pts to the team that scored more runs (PHI - 3)
3. 14 pts to the team with fewer doubles (COL - 14)
4. 12 pts to the team with more triples (PHI - 12)
5. 10 pts to the team with more home runs (PHI - 10)
6. 8 pts to the team with the lower team batting average (PHI - 8)
7. 8 pts to the team that committed fewer errors (COL - 8)
8. 7 pts to the team that turned more double plays (COL - 7)
9. 7 pts to the team that walked more batters (PHI - 7)
10. 19 pts to the team that had more shutouts (PHI - 19)
11. 15 pts to the team whose ERA was lower (COL - 15)
12. 12 pts to the team that has been in postseason most recently or
    went further (COL - 0)
13. 12 pts to the team that won season series (COL - 12)

PHI - 59, COL - 58

• Biggest advantage goes to a team I'm picking to lose.


• I've run this several times over the years, and never seen a result as close as Rockies-Phillies.