B-Ref Blog is Dead, Long Live A Successor?

The entertaining blog that has over the past few years sat on the front page at baseball-reference.com is no longer being kept active by the Baseball-Reference folks. However, the B-Ref data is always a fertile source for on-going discussion and if those who have posted and commented there would like to keep that discussion going here or elsewhere, I'm happy to help. Feel free to post comments here on that prospect.

The Santo Cause

Ron Santo, who just passed away, surely had a career deserving of the Hall of Fame. Wins Above Replacement suggests he was the most valuable everyday player in the majors in the last half of the 1960s, and was one of the greatest third basemen of all-time.

But 1969 he probably preferred to forget. After the games of August 6 that season, the Cubs had a superb 71-41 record, and led the NL East by nine full games over the second place Mets. Santo was playing like an MVP, with a BA of .314, OBP of .409, SLG of .543 and OPS of .952. But from then on, through September 24, the day the Mets clinched the NL East, Santo managed only a BA of .231, OBP of .315, SLG of .333 and OPS of .648. The Cubs over that stretch went 19-26 and went from 9 games ahead ahead of the Mets on August 6 to six games behind the Mets with five to play. Over the five games remaining after the Cubs were out of it, Santo's OPS was .900.

Ron had health problems most of his life, and he could not have enjoyed repeatedly being denied a deserved induction into the Hall of Fame. But the final seven weeks of the 1969 season could not have been one of his better memories either. Cruel game, baseball, as recent Mets fans know. Perhaps the last few seasons for the Mets could be thought of as Santo's Revenge.

The Tender Trap

John Maine, Chris Carter and Sean Green were "non-tendered". That is, the Mets chose not to offer them the minimum one-year contract salary required to keep exclusive negotiating rights to their services. So the three are now free agents. The Mets could re-sign them, presumably at an amount less than the minimum amounts that would have been required to retain exclusive rights, but to do so the Mets now have to compete with potential offers from all other clubs.

Maine is two Wins short of being in the franchise top 10 for Wins by righty Mets pitchers, and Carter fell two hits short of leading the majors in pinch hits in 2010.

Most Regular Season Wins by a Right-Handed Mets Pitcher:

1. Tom Seaver 198
2. Dwight Gooden 157
3. Ron Darling 99
4. David Cone 81
5. Bobby Jones 74
6. Steve Trachsel 66
T7. Rick Reed and Craig Swan 59
9. Mike Pelfrey 43
T10. Pat Zachry and Gary Gentry 41
12. John Maine 39

Most Pinch Hits by a Major Leaguer in 2010:
1. Joe Inglett (MIL) 20
2. Chris Carter (NYM) 19
3. Delwyn Young (PIT) 16
T4. Ross Gload (PH), Nick Stavinoha (STL) ands and Travis Ishikawa (SFG) 15

Snow More Nieve

Nieve is Spanish for snow, and and Fernando Nieve is "snow more" a Met, having signed a minor league deal with the Pirates. (That is not a phrase describing 21st century stardom: "minor league deal with the Pirates").

Most Games Pitched in a Season By A Met With a Season ERA of 6 or higher:

1. Mel Rojas (1998): 50 Games Pitched, 6.05 ERA

2. Fernando Nieve (2010): 40 Games Pitched, 6.00 ERA

3. Ray Daviault (1962): 36 Games Pitched, 6.22 ERA

4. Ryota Igarashi (2010): 34 Games Pitched, 7.12 ERA

5. Rich Rodriguez (2000): 32 Games Pitched, 7.78 ERA

Feeling Left Out

Pedro Feliciano declined the Mets' offer of arbitration, making him a free agent. He could still sign with the Mets, but they no longer control him contractually.

We can divide Feliciano's career into two pieces. Part 1 ran from from Pedro's MLB debut in 2002 through the end of 2007. Part 2 consists of the last three seasons, 2008 through 2010.

Pedro has been equally superb against lefties in both these parts of his career. Lefty hitters against him had a .575 OPS through 2007, and have had a .579 OPS against him from 2008 on. So no decline whatsoever against lefties.

Bu then we turn to Pedro against right-handed batters. In Part 1 of Feliciano's career, righty hitters had only a .727 OPS against him, a very good number for a lefty pitcher facing righties. However, from 2008 through the just-completed 2010 season, right-handed batters put up a .907 OPS against Feliciano. That is, the numbers indicate dramatic disintegration in his ability against righty hitter, albeit as with any relief pitcher's splits, we are not talking about huge samples, so it's possible Pedro's true talent against righties was not as good as the numbers suggest in Part 1 of his career and not as bad as the last three years' numbers indicate.

But if indeed the split numbers do reflect a real change in Pedro's true talent level against righties, and reflect the real magnitude of that change, Pedro can no longer be used to any significant degree against right-handed hitters. It would be sad to conclude that a fellow who was a full-service relief pitcher, and a famously prolific one, has declined into a pure "Left-Handed One-Out Guy". Unfortunately that may be where Pedro is at this point in his career.

Smashing Success

The obituaries for Gil McDougald tended to focus on a couple of freak injuries: the ball he hit that struck Herb Score in the eye, and the injury McDougald himself suffered when hit by a batted ball in the ear. That's classic press coverage -- look for the human interest angle. But that sort of focus tends to underplay just how splendid, and unusual, McDougald was as a baseball talent.

Gil could and would start at second base, or third base, or short, whatever the Yankees most needed that season, or indeed that day, and he was a wonderful fielder at all three positions. Baseball-reference's Fielding Runs (based on Sean Smith's Total Zone fielding evaluation system) gives McDougald the fourth highest total among Yankee infielders all-time, behind only Clete Boyer, Phil Rizzuto,and Joe Gordon. But Boyer, Rizzuto and Gordon each played only one infield position (third, short and second, respectively), while McDougald mastered all three of their positions and thus gave the Yankees an extraordinary amount of flexibility to deploy their infield talent effectively throughout the 1950s.

And McDougald was a legitimate offensive force as well. Clete Boyer was one of the great defensive third basemen of all time, but had a career OPS+ of only 86, and Rizzuto's career OPS+ was 93, good for a shortstop of his (or any) era, but not what you call a big hitter. McDougald was nearly as valuable a fielder as either Clete or Phil, but Gil's career OPS+ was a quite substantial 111 (comparable to, say, Alfonso Soriano's career 113 OPS+), making him an important part of the Yankee lineup wherever he played in the infield.

Truly one of the great all-around talents the majors has seen. He retired early, playing only until he was 32, retiring as a Yankee rather than leave in the expansion draft to go play for the brand new Los Angeles Angels. As a result his career numbers don't stack up with the greatest. But he was enormously valuable to the Yankees. McDougald's nickname among his teammates, according to Don Larsen's book The Perfect Yankee, was "Smash", and he was indeed a smashing success.

The Matter of Size

Rumors bounced around the InterMet (that's the Mets subsection of the Internet) yesterday that free agent pitcher Chris Young might be signing with the Mets. Chris is 6 feet 10 inches tall. As such, he would tie Eric Hillman for tallest Met ever.

Eric Hillman started 36 games in his MLB career (all for the Mets) and ended up with only 4 career Wins, which is one of the worst ratios of starts needed per Win in MLB history. The Mets' Pat Misch is right up there with Hillman, though as an active player, Pat still has a chance to win some more games and cut his ratio to a more normal level.

Over the past 100 years of Major League Baseball, among all pitchers who had at least 20 career starts, the pitchers who required the most starts per Win:

Jack Nabors (1915-1917) 37 career starts, one career Win

Mike Thompson (1971-1975) 29 career starts, one career Win

Eric Hillman (1992-1994) 36 career starts, four career Wins

Pat Misch (2006-2010) 24 career starts, three career Wins

Hal Griggs (1956-1959) 45 career starts, six career Wins

Jo-Jo Reyes (2007-2010) 37 career starts, five career Wins

Josh Geer (2008-2009) 22 career starts, three career Wins

Ken Reynolds (1970-1976) 51 career starts, seven career Wins

Yankee Failure Returns Again

Javier Vasquez pitched well for the Expos, and then spent a year with the Yankees and was a disappointment there. Eventually he returned to the NL East and pitched well with the Braves, and then spent another year with the Yankees, only to disappoint there again. So naturally, he now takes a third spin in the NL East, signing with the Marlins. From 1999 through 2010, Vasquez has been credited with ten Wins against the Mets. Over that period, only four pitchers have more Wins against the Mets: Greg Maddux and Tim Hudson (13 Wins each), Randy Wolf (12 Wins) and Dontrelle Willis (11 Wins).

Iron Age

Harvey Araton in today's New York Times:

"In the past seven years, Jeter has missed a combined 51 games, or 7.3 per season, which in modern baseball is about as Iron Horsey as one gets."

Over the past seven seasons, 2004-2010, Derek Jeter has played in 1,083 regular season games. Over the seven seasons from 1926 to 1932, Lou Gehrig played in 1,083 regular season games, exactly the same number as Jeter played in over 2004-2010. For each guy, that was the seven-season sequence in which they played the most regular season games of their respective careers.

Derek played in 48 post-season games over 2004-2010, for a total of 1,131 major league games. over the past seven seasons. Gehrig played in 19 post-season games over the 1926-1932 period, for a total of 1,102 major league contests over that seven-season span -- 29 fewer than Jeter played over 2004-2010.

Top 10, Most MLB Games Played, 2004-2010, Regular and Post-Season Combined:

1. Derek Jeter 1,131
2. Albert Pujols 1,126
3. Ichiro Suzuki 1,115
4. Bobby Abreu 1,114
5. Adam Dunn 1,108
6. Miguel Cabrera 1,103
7. Mike Young 1,100
8. Mark Teixeira 1,098
T9. Miguel Tejada 1,091
T9. Orlando Cabrera 1,091

Manhattan's Last Game

The man who threw the final major league pitch in Brooklyn just passed away: Danny McDevitt, who pitched a complete game victory for the Dodgers in their last home game of the 1957 season, before the franchise relocated to Los Angeles. But a Met fan might ask, what about the last major league pitch in Manhattan?

The very fine Phillies' pitcher Chris Short threw a complete game victory over the Mets in the last major league game at the Polo Grounds in upper Manhattan on September 18, 1963, at the end of an era (Beatles songs were first heard in the US about the same time, and President Kennedy was assassinated two months later). The box score and play-by-play for this game are here: http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/NYN/NYN196309180.shtml

Short's last pitch was a line drive double-play ball to end the game, off the bat of Mets' pinch-hitter Ted Schreiber. Schreiber (whose only major league experience was his 11 starts as an infielder, and 28 other games in which he appeared briefly, with the Mets that season) was a New York City guy, born in Brooklyn and a graduate of that borough's James Madison High School, where he would have been a few years behind my mother. He went to college at St. John's in Queens, and after his baseball career taught for many years at a public school in Brooklyn, while living in Staten Island. Seems somehow appropriate that a Brooklyn/Queens/Staten Island guy brought the curtain down on major league baseball in Manhattan. For Ted's biography, check here: http://bioproj.sabr.org/bioproj.cfm?a=v&v=l&bid=2467&pid=12666.

As for Chris Short, the only pitchers with more career Wins (or Wins Above Replacement, if you prefer the more sophisticated sabermetric measure) as a Phillie are three core Hall-of-Famers Steve Carlton, Robin Roberts and Pete Alexander.

Managing Homers

Here's a list I've put together, with a bit of original research using both baseball-reference and baseball musings' Day-By-Day Database, that shows the top 10 most regular season homers hit by a Met under a single Mets manager:

1. Darryl Strawberry, 196 homers under Davey Johnson
2. Mike Piazza, 170 homers under Bobby Valentine
3. Howard Johnson, 125 homers under Davey Johnson
4. Edgardo Alfonzo, 114 homers under Bobby Valentine
5. Carlos Beltran, 100 homers under Willie Randolph
6. David Wright, 95 homers under Willie Randolph
7. Gary Carter, 89 homers under Davey Johnson
8. Kevin McReynolds, 84 homers under Davey Johnson
9. Robin Ventura, 77 homers under Bobby Valentine
10. Todd Hundley 76 homers under Dallas Green

Now here's a list (in chronological order) of each of the Mets' 19 managers, along with the guy who hit the most homers for each manager and the number of those homers:

Casey Stengel: Frank Thomas 52
Wes Westrum: Ed Kranepool 27
Salty Parker: Jerry Buchek 3
Gil Hodges: Tommie Agee 69
Yogi Berra: John Milner 67
Roy McMillan: Dave Kingman 12
Joe Frazier: Dave Kingman 45
Joe Torre: Lee Mazzilli 59
George Bamberger: Dave Kingman 47
Frank Howard: Darryl Strawberry 23
Davey Johnson: Darryl Strawberry 196
Bud Harrelson: Howard Johnson 52
Mike Cubbage: Kevin McReynolds 2
Jeff Torborg: Bobby Bonilla 28
Dallas Green: Todd Hundley 76
Bobby Valentine: Mike Piazza 170
Art Howe: Cliff Floyd 36
Willie Randolph: Carlos Beltran 100
Jerry Manuel: David Wright 60

Research note: Why did I need to use David Pinto's Day-by-Day Database over at baseball musings for this particular research? One of the few things left that one can do at baseball musings that can't be done at b-ref, either with b-ref's free data or its Play Index data, is run stat searches that key off of mid-season dates. Because managers often come and go mid-season, accurate lists of this type require Day-by-Day Database searches. I did however, first use b-ref's wonderfully helpful data to track the dates of the various mid-season managerial changes. B-ref prominently displays, on each team-season page, the win-loss record of each manager who managed that team that season. By taking that information and then jumping directly to the schedule/results page for that team-season, it is quite easy to track the dates on which those win-loss records for each manager were accumulated. I then had the exact dates of each mid-season managerial change, giving me exact start and end dates for each managerial tenure. It was then just a matter of putting those dates into David Pinto's search form at baseball musings to get homers hit for each manager.

Managing to Win

Terry Collins has won 444 regular season MLB games as a manager. That puts him 141st all-time in career wins as a major league manager. To squeeze into the top 100, Collins will likely need to win close to 190 more.

444 current wins, plus 180 more would put him at 624 career wins. Today that would be good for a tie for 96th among MLB managers all-time. But other managers will be winning games at the same time as Terry and will race him to the top 100. Currently employed managers with between 400 and 624 career wins:

Jim Riggleman 624 (Nationals)

Ozzie Guillen 600 (White Sox)

Eric Wedge 561 (new manager of the Mariners)

Clint Hurdle 534 (new manager of the Pirates)

Ned Yost 512 (Royals)

Joe Maddon 431 (Rays)

If all these guys get past 624 wins before Collins, and they each seem likely to do so, that would leave Terry reaching 624 wins when it would be merely the 101st highest total all-time, no longer in "top 100" territory. Collins can more safely assume he will cross over to the top-100 side if he gets to 630 wins or so, matching Harry "the Hat" Walker's career total. From Terry's current 444 to 630 wins would require 186 more wins. If Terry Collins can get 186 more wins over the course of his new two-year contract (93 win per season average), he will probably have earned a contract extension, as well as a spot in the top 100 winning-est managers.

Houston, No Problem

Terry Collins had a .532 winning percentage as Astros manager. Of the 16 non-interim managers that the Houston franchise has had, only Larry Dierker (.556) has led the team to a better winning percentage. Similarly, Collins finished 27 games over .500 as Astros manager, and again only Dierker ended up with a higher number of games above .500 as Astros manager.

Tricycles

If a "cycle" is at least one each of a single, double, triple and homer in the same game, a "tricycle" is a baby cycle, one with three wheels -- only three of the required four events. There are four types of tricycles: a cycle that's missing a homer, one missing a triple, one missing a double, and the hardest tricycle of all, the one missing a single.

Jose Reyes has 5 homerless tricycles in Mets history, three of them in 2008. No other Mets has more than three homerless tricycles in his Mets career. In fact Reyes had three homerless tricycles in 2008 alone. The players with the most homerless tricycles in the major leagues since 1962, when the Mets began play, are Paul Molitor and Wade Boggs with 13 each, followed by George Brett and Willie Davis with 12 each.

David Wright has more triple-less tricycles as a Met than any player, with 13 (Mike Piazza had 12 and Carlos Beltran has 10). A-Rod and Barry Bonds lead the majors in triple-less tricycles since 1962, each has 35 in his career, ahead of Billy Williams and Juan Gonzalez with 32 each.

Double-less tricycles are unusual. Darryl Strawberry has the most in Mets history with 3, while Frank Thomas of the original '62 Mets had two within a week of each other in May of 1962. No other Mets has more than one, and there have only been 28 such games in Mets history. Across the majors since 1962, the most doubleless tricycles by any player has been 6, accomplished by Roberto Clemente, Andy Van Slyke and Ron Gant.

Finally, there have been only 6 single-less tricycles in Mets history. Amazingly enough, Gregg Jefferies has three of the six, two of them within a few weeks of each other in late August/early September 1988. The other three single-less tricycles in Mets history have been by Darryl Strawberry, Ron Swoboda and Joe Christopher. No player in the majors since 1962 has more single-less tricycles than the three by Jefferies -- Manny Trillo and Ellis Burks also had three and Brian Giles, who is still active, also has had three in his career.

Run of Runs

Most Consecutive Games by a Met with at least 1 Run Scored

David Wright, 13 games (July 13-July 29, 2008)
Carlos Beltran, 12 games (August 17-August 30, 2006)
Derek Bell, 11 games (June 21-July 1, 2000)
Melvin Mora, 10 games (June 22-July 1, 2000)

(source: baseball-reference.com's Play Index)

Truly odd that Bell's and Mora's streaks were over the same games. In terms of the progression of this record, Frank Thomas had a six game streak in May of 1962, which was tied but not suprassed until Tommie Davis had a seven game streak in 1967, which was tied but not surpassed until Tommie Agee's 8 game streak in May of 1969, which in turn was quickly broken by Art Shamsky's 9 game streak in June/July, 1969, which was tied over the years by Mackey Sasser, Bernard Gilkey and John Olerud but not surpassed until Mora and Bell reached 10 and 11 respectively over that one sequence of games in 2000. Wright's record streak in 2008, by the way, started with the last game before the All-Star break and then proceeded with 12 straight games after the break.

Minor Adjustments

The Mets have signed Freddy Garcia and Rob Mackowiak to minor league deals, each with a chance to make more money if he makes the major league team.

Most Wins in the American League over the past 10 seasons:
1. Mike Mussina 152
2. Roy Halladay 130
3/4. Mark Buehrle/Bartolo Colon 122
5. Freddy Garcia 117

_____________________________

MLB players in the Expansion Era (1961-current) who have at least 150 career games played in LF, and at least 150 career games played in CF, and at least 150 career games played in RF, and at least 150 career games played at 3B (in order of career OPS+):

Tommy Harper 101 OPS+
Cesar Tovar 100 OPS+
Rob Mackowiak 91 OPS+

That's the whole list.

If you drop down to 100 career games at each of LF, CF, RF and third base you add three more guys:

Pedro Guerrero 137 OPS+
Bill Robinson 104 OPS+
Joel Youngblood 103 OPS+

Dropping down again to a 75 game mimimum at each postion you add six more guys: Tony Phillips, Jim Hickman, Woody Held, Elliot Maddox, Mickey Hatcher and Bob Bailor. Of the 12 guys we now have in total, 5 played for the Mets during their careers -- Mackowiak if he makes the team will make it six, an even 50% of the group.

Hard Hitting Coverage

The Mets' offense is now second in the NL in run scoring in 2008. The last time the Mets finished a full season that high in the league in run scoring was 1990, when they led the NL in runs. The Mets also led the NL in runs for three years in a row, 1986 through 1988. Those were the only other times in franchise history that the team fininshed higher than third in the league in run scoring.

Part of the reason for the Mets' limited number of times near the top of the NL in runs is the constraining effect Shea has long had on run scoring. By way of example, the Mets are way behind the Cubs this season in overall run scoring. The Cubs as the top run scoring team in the NL are averaging 5.34 runs per game to the Mets second place number of 4.99 runs per game. But the Mets are actually outscoring the Cubs in road games, 5.08 runs per game to 5.00 runs per game. At Wrigley, the Cubs have scored an average of 5.65 runs per game, compared to the Mets' average of 4.90 runs per game at Shea.

Looking For Mo

How much is "momentum" worth after a ten-game winning streak? I looked at the seven winning streaks (before the most recent one) in Mets history that lasted 10 or more games -- four eleven-game win streaks (May/June 1969, May 1972, April 1986 and June 1990) and three ten-game win streaks (September 1969, June/July 1976 and July 1991). Obviously the game immediately after a win streak is always a loss, by defintion. But then I looked at what happened in the 10 games after that streak-breaking loss. In the 10 games immediately after the loss that ended the Mets' four 11-game win streaks, the Mets went 6-4, 6-4, 8-2 and 7-3, for a very impressive 27-13 record. In the ten games following the the loss tthat ended the Mets three streaks of exactly 10 wins, the Mets went 7-3, 4-6 and 4-6, for an exactly .500 record of 15-15. Adding those two groups together you get a 42-28 record in the applicable 70 games immediately following the seven double digit streak-enders.

Home Improvement

There's been a lot of discussion the last few days on the net and in the mainstream press about the unusually large home field advantage that has shown up this season across the majors. The Mets have been no exception. Going into tonight's game, the Mets have a .607 winning percentage at home and .382 away, which sounds more like a football or basketball differential than a baseball one. The Mets current 2008 differential comes out to a difference of .225 home over away. If extended over a full season, that would be the largest home/away differential in Mets history, topping the previous high of .210 in 1963 (.420 home, .210 away).

Last year the Mets had a home park disadvantage, .580 on the road and only .506 at home.Overall since 1962 the Mets have had an .069 home/road differential. Since 1962, the largest home/road differentials by a single team over one full season have been by the 1996 Rockies and 1987 Twins, who each had win percentages a full .333 greater at home than on the road. This season so far, two teams, Atlanta and Boston, have larger differentials than that. The biggest road advantage by any team since 1962 has been the 1994 Cubs, who were .339 at home and .537 on the road.

Since 1962, on average 15% of teams end up the season with a higher road percentage than home percentage and about 2 to 3% complete a season with identical home and road percentages, while the other 82% or so win more at home than on the road. This season so far (going into tonight's games), only the Giants and Angels among the 30 MLB clubs have a road over home advantage. The Mets, despite having a home over road differential that would be the highest in team history over a full season, have only the seventh highest home/road differential in the majors so far in 2008.

NL East Hall of Fame

The National League East division began in its current form with the 1994 season, so the current season is the division's 15th season. The most Win Shares accumulated, 1994-current, by players playing for teams in the NL East (Mets in bold; players active in the NL East in 2008 in italics):

1. Chipper Jones 342
2. Andruw Jones 256
3. Bobby Abreu 241
4. Tom Glavine 229
5. Greg Maddux 221
6. John Smoltz 211
7. Cliff Floyd 174
8. Edgardo Alfonzo 169
9. Vlad Guerrero 166
10. Jimmy Rollins 165
11. Javy Lopez 157
12/13. Gary Sheffield/Pat Burrell 153
14. Mike Piazza 149
15. Luis Castillo 146
16. Jose Vidro 141
17. Scott Rolen 139
18/19. Miguel Cabrera/Mike Lowell 127
20/21. Al Leiter/Mike Lieberthal 121

David Wright, at 113, and Chase Utley, at 111, should break onto this list this summer.