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2017 MLB Season - The Goat Memorial Thread

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Kepler said:
The f-ck is "Button"? Those look like Hrabosky's chops.
Click to expand...

It's a ****ty JPG. Those are Don Sutton's mutton chops.


*edit*
Robin Yount, Bob McClure, Jim Gantner
Rollie Fingers, Gorman Thomas, Don Sutton
Moose Haas, Charlie Moore, Mike Caldwell
Cecil Cooper, Pete Vukovich, Paul Molitor
 
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Re: 2017 MLB Season - The Goat Memorial Thread

aparch said:
It's a ****ty JPG. Those are Don Sutton's mutton chops.


*edit*
Robin Yount, Bob McClure, Jim Gantner
Rollie Fingers, Gorman Thomas, Don Sutton
Moose Haas, Charlie Moore, Mike Caldwell
Cecil Cooper, Pete Vukovich, Paul Molitor
Click to expand...

Huh. Had no idea Johns Rocker's Father-in-law was ever on Milwaukee. Thought he was a career Dodger.

I've also never heard of Moose Haas. Was he a coach?
 
Re: 2017 MLB Season - The Goat Memorial Thread

Wait, John Rocker married Don Sutton's daughter?


Moose was a pitcher for the Brewers. 10 years, and another two with Oakland (the Athletics and Brewers seem to be prime trade partners). Decent too. 100 W 83 L 4.01 ERA.

*edit* Baseball Reference says he's comparable to Chris Bosio or Rick Porcello.
 
Re: 2017 MLB Season - The Goat Memorial Thread

Kepler said:
Mathematically, you can get a glimpse of the effect by looking at the career arcs of players who overlapped both periods. You could get a measure of the improvement in the competition by seeing how quickly they decline compared to someone whose career is entirely in one period or the other. You would expect players whose careers overlapped to decline faster, because they have essentially been "promoted" from AA to AAA MLB.

Then, once you've used this to measure the improvement of the league caused by integration at any given point -- smallest in 1947, then larger each subsequent year until a peak is reached ten (or twenty) years after -- you can apply the appropriate coefficient for league strength to any single season stats, and thus normalize them for all eras.

You can repeat the process with the internationalization of the game in the 90s and 00s, and then again when the Chinese take over in the 2040s.
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I just don't believe there is an accurate way to normalize the numbers for all eras, particularly as it relates to integration. I'd love to see an attempt based somewhat on what you've noted above, but I just can't imagine there are that many players whose careers spanned long enough to make any significant finding.
 
Re: 2017 MLB Season - The Goat Memorial Thread

aparch said:
Wait, John Rocker married Don Sutton's daughter?
Click to expand...

Yes, apparently a paranoid, delusional, raging racist Georgian millionaire pitcher was attractive to the child of an Alabaman millionaire pitcher.

Go figure.
 
Re: 2017 MLB Season - The Goat Memorial Thread

Fighting Sioux 23 said:
I just don't believe there is an accurate way to normalize the numbers for all eras, particularly as it relates to integration. I'd love to see an attempt based somewhat on what you've noted above, but I just can't imagine there are that many players whose careers spanned long enough to make any significant finding.
Click to expand...

SSS might be a problem. You could build a dataset from a fairly large number of players active during the integration ramp up, but standard error would probably be large enough to wash out any statistical significance.

Worth a shot, though.

I suspect there are industrial suites and processes that model this kind of thing. Basically, how do you retain a predictive model's goodness of fit when environmental conditions change over time in a non-random fashion? The other thing is error is going to be greater when you get to the top performers (just because there are fewer outliers) not to mention the underlying distribution of error may be, my all-time favorite math term, heteroskedastic.
 
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Re: 2017 MLB Season - The Goat Memorial Thread

Kepler said:
Holy crap that is a good point and I've never thought of it or read it.

That right there may be the single biggest advantage that roids give you. Honestly, did you read that somewhere or work it out yourself (engineering, bat speed, leverage, makes sense) -- it's brilliant.
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Its from playing ball myself in school. Its hard to hit a home run. Or put a better way, if you're going to drive the ball you need the barrel of the bat to meet it a foot or so in front of the plate with the full force of your weight shifting forward. If a guy's throwing hard, you also have to worry about shifting forward only to get a baseball flying towards an unprotected spot (knees, shins, ankles, etc). That's why if you had 2 strikes you were told to choke up on the bat and just slap it somewhere but you sure as hell weren't hitting it out with that method.

Watch an old baseball game from like 30-40 years ago and the players look like regular dudes. Really built guys (Jim Rice comes to mind from my youth) stood out and were exceptions to the rule. Now he'd be the size of your average 2nd baseman.

Now to another poster's point, Bonds was clearly an exceptional hitter with his hand-eye coordination. The ability to sit back on pitches coupled with that hand-eye coordination got him 763 HR's. Maybe he hits 600 without 'roids although again you have to consider that his body would have started breaking down ala Griffey Jr in his late 30's if he wasn't using.
 
Re: 2017 MLB Season - The Goat Memorial Thread

Must be the Dirty Water.

Red Sox apparently used Apple watches to steal Yankee's signs.
 
Re: 2017 MLB Season - The Goat Memorial Thread

I have no idea what to consider. Can roids help you heal, sure. Does long term use lead to injury that otherwise would not have occurred, sure. So do they prolong a career or cut it short? It seems like the answer is yes. Was Griffey Jr. clean? We'll never know, but nice that you give him the benefit of the doubt. He may have broken down because of steroids, not failed to heal without them.
 
Re: 2017 MLB Season - The Goat Memorial Thread

Hammer said:
Now imagine if he was born 10 years later, and didn't have to spend the first six years of his career pitching in the dead ball era. If he spends his prime in the 1930s (one of the biggest offensive eras in baseball history) instead of the 1920s, he's probably pushing 900 homers and 2,500 RBI.

When he hit his 60 in 1927, he was already 32 and towards the end of his prime. He effectively did his damage over 15 seasons (1919-1933).
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Except you can't ignore how Ruth changed the style of play. I don't think it would've changed without him. I think if Babe Ruth had been born 10 years later, the Dead Ball Era would have ended 10 years later than it did. The 30s probably aren't one of the biggest offensive eras without Ruth hitting in the 20s.
 
Re: 2017 MLB Season - The Goat Memorial Thread

Fighting Sioux 23 said:
I just don't believe there is an accurate way to normalize the numbers for all eras, particularly as it relates to integration. I'd love to see an attempt based somewhat on what you've noted above, but I just can't imagine there are that many players whose careers spanned long enough to make any significant finding.
Click to expand...

Small sample size, but Ted Williams played from 1939-1960, minus 5 prime seasons lost serving in both WWII and Korea. His numbers didn't dip a bit after integration.
 
Re: 2017 MLB Season - The Goat Memorial Thread

Hammer said:
Small sample size, but Ted Williams played from 1939-1960, minus 5 prime seasons lost serving in both WWII and Korea. His numbers didn't dip a bit after integration.
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Umm...No. Even if we assume that MLB was fully integrated by 1950 (which it certainly was not), here are Ted Williams Stats:

1939-1949:
8 Seasons Played (1,184 Games)
314 Doubles (Led the League twice)
56 Triples
265 Home Runs (Led the League four times)
1,038 RBIs (Led the League four times)
1,082 Runs (Led the League six times)
1,488 Hits
Won 2 MVPs and placed in the Top 3 4 additional times.

1950-1960:
11 Seasons Played (1,108 Games)
211 Doubles
15 Triples
256 Home Runs
801 RBIs
716 Runs
1,166 Hits
Did not lead the league in any of the above-categories.
0 MVPs and placed in the Top 3 once.

Small sample size, I agree, but Ted Williams' numbers definitely tailed off after integration.
 
Re: 2017 MLB Season - The Goat Memorial Thread

Fighting Sioux 23 said:
Umm...No. Even if we assume that MLB was fully integrated by 1950 (which it certainly was not), here are Ted Williams Stats:

1939-1949:
8 Seasons Played (1,184 Games)
314 Doubles (Led the League twice)
56 Triples
265 Home Runs (Led the League four times)
1,038 RBIs (Led the League four times)
1,082 Runs (Led the League six times)
1,488 Hits
Won 2 MVPs and placed in the Top 3 4 additional times.

1950-1960:
11 Seasons Played (1,108 Games)
211 Doubles
15 Triples
256 Home Runs
801 RBIs
716 Runs
1,166 Hits
Did not lead the league in any of the above-categories.
0 MVPs and placed in the Top 3 once.

Small sample size, I agree, but Ted Williams' numbers definitely tailed off after integration.
Click to expand...

But that's not the important comparison. What matters is finding players similar to Williams but whose career is entirely within one era or the other. All careers tail off for anyone not named Koufax or Ryan. We have to quantify what's normal and then see if there's any additional drop that could theoretically be the improvement of league quality due to integration.
 
Re: 2017 MLB Season - The Goat Memorial Thread

Kepler said:
But that's not the important comparison. What matters is finding players similar to Williams but whose career is entirely within one era or the other. All careers tail off for anyone not named Koufax or Ryan. We have to quantify what's normal and then see if there's any additional drop that could theoretically be the improvement of league quality due to integration.
Click to expand...

That's all well and good, but we both know that this attempt is futile if the goal is to come up with something statistically significant.

The purpose of my post was to refute the assertion that Ted Williams' numbers didn't dip after integration. They certainly did.
 
Re: 2017 MLB Season - The Goat Memorial Thread

Fighting Sioux 23 said:
That's all well and good, but we both know that this attempt is futile if the goal is to come up with something statistically significant.
Click to expand...

???

No, we don't. That's a matter for math. I said I suspect the samples will be too small. However, there's another place to look and it is enormous. The minors.
 
Re: 2017 MLB Season - The Goat Memorial Thread

Fighting Sioux 23 said:
The purpose of my post was to refute the assertion that Ted Williams' numbers didn't dip after integration. They certainly did.
Click to expand...

I understand that, but that statement is misleading when applied to what we are talking about.
 
Re: 2017 MLB Season - The Goat Memorial Thread

Kepler said:
???

No, we don't. That's a matter for math. I said I suspect the samples will be too small. However, there's another place to look and it is enormous. The minors.
Click to expand...

We'll have to agree to disagree. Report back when you've crunched the numbers. ;)
 
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