My Top 60 Starters, 1-10

10. Eddie Plank (.594 NW%, 127 ARA, +52, +115)
9. Warren Spahn (.584, 120, +46, +119)
8. Lefty Grove (.650, 143, +66, +120)
7. Greg Maddux (.599, 131, +60, +124)
6. Tom Seaver (.611, 130, +62, +128)
5. Christy Mathewson (.635, 131, +62, +128)
4. Roger Clemens (.654, 141, +78, +145)
3. Pete Alexander (.643, 135, +78, +150)
2. Walter Johnson (.619, 141, +96, +179)
1. Cy Young (.621, 130, +93, +195)

PLANK: I believe that I have ranked Plank higher then most other rankings have, and so it deserves a bit of an explanation. The Sporting News ranked him 18th among pitchers who would be eligible for my list; Bill James ranked him 17th in career value for pitchers in 1985 and 34th in his rankings in 2001. He is 25th in Adjusted Pitching Wins as of the 2005 Palmer/Gillette Encyclopedia, and 33rd in Pitching Wins. So why is he tenth here?

Because I don’t see any reason why he shouldn’t be, at least with respect to the way I have ranked everyone else. The good justifications for dropping Plank that I can accept are based on looking at the definition of “top” in a different way or making a better attempt at isolating pitching from fielding support.

Plank’s NW-NL record is 309-211, which is good for 106 WCR. The only pitcher ranked below him on this list with more WCR is Randy Johnson. Plank can be seen as an earlier-day Spahn; a left-hander who never had the dominant seasons of some of the other greats, but was good for a long time. He had 14 seasons of >=5 WAR. Cy Young had 17, Mathewson 11, Alexander 15, Johnson 17…he was good for as long as his contemporaries were, but not as brilliant. Plank’s top 5 seasons only sum to +44 WAR, which is thirtieth among pitchers I have looked at; only Spahn ranks lower among the top ten. So he’s not going to blow anyone away on peak value, especially when you consider the era in which he pitched.

The more interesting thing on its face is why my WAA for Plank differs so much from Palmer’s. Palmer has him at +29, using earned runs CORRECTION: Greg Spira, an associate editor of the ESPN Baseball Encyclopedia, wrote to point out that Pete charges half of unearned runs to the pitcher. Shows what I get for not reading the glossary and assuming the methodology was the same as in some of his earlier works. Using earned runs instead of all runs, I get Plank down to +32. Plank allowed a smaller share of unearned runs then the league average during his time (75% of Plank’s runs were earned, 72% for the league), but that is a far cry from today when 90% of runs are earned. So I’m sure some will argue that using RA instead of ERA overvalues old-time pitchers, and there is some truth to that. But I think that using ERA is a band-aid, a poor substitute for attempting to estimate defense dependence in other ways.

GROVE: Grove suffers because of a shorter career then others, due partly to his stint in Baltimore, for which I do not credit him. You can see that in terms of WAA, he ranks fifth, and the higher baseline helps him. Either way, he’s the top southpaw of all-time in my book.

SEAVER & MATHEWSON: Bill James linked these two in the first Historical Abstract and was right on. I decided to go with Mathewson, but the fact that Seaver pitched sixty years later could make it very easy to justify him in front.

CLEMENS: Can he catch Alexander? He’s got him in rates and WAA, and he picked up four WAR last year, but that was pitching brilliantly. If he stays on the half season plan, it’ll be tough.

YOUNG: I am tempted to move Young down because of the fact that a lot of his value (97 WAR) is in the nineteenth century, and this is a post-1900 list, with the exception of guys like Young who pitched a significant amount after the turn of the century. Of course, that’s only about half of his value; you could make two top twenty pitchers out of him.

A Season in Three Acts

The Buckeyes’ 2007 season is best viewed in three pieces. A solid non-conference campaign, albeit against weak competition, that did nothing to dash the high hopes for the team; a disastrous (by OSU standards at least) conference campaign that saw the Buckeyes need to win their final game of the season to even finish sixth and earn a tournament berth; and an awesome tournament campaign, that saw Ohio sweep through the Big Ten Tournament in four (including a win over that state up north and two from perennial diamond rival Minnesota) exciting games, then give a good effort in the NCAAs, losing in the ninth to Lousiana-Lafayette, beating LeMoyne, and finally falling to Texas A&M.

Looking at the team statistics, OSU was third in W% at .613 (Minnesota led at .659), third in EW% at .573 (tsun led at .707), and fourth in PW% at .565 (tsun led at .701). Looking at the other conference teams, the only one that significantly deviated from the expected W%s was Purdue, actually .407 but with an EW% of .495 and a PW% of .581.

The big problem for OSU this season was a poor offense. Pitching injuries which I will discuss later were a big culprit as well, but the Buckeye attack was fairly average. Even adjusting for the 3% pitcher benefit that Bill Davis Stadium provides, the Bucks only averaged 6.2 R/G versus the average of 6.1, ranking fifth out of the ten squads. OSU did hit .316 versus an average of .308, and draw .109 walks/at bat versus an average of .104, both good for fourth in the conference. But power was lacking, as the Buckeyes’ ISO was just .089 against an average of .114, ninth in the conference. Power has been the Achilles’ heel of OSU for a couple years now, but never as starkly as in 2007.

The bad news for the Bucks going forward is that the top three hitters in terms of RAA are all gone. Junior CF Matt Angle was +20, hitting 366/458/454, pacing the team with 58 RC and a 9.4 RG; he was drafted by the Orioles in the seventh round and signed, joining Jedidiah Stephen in the organization. Senior 2B/SS/DH Jason Zoeller was +14 and popped 9 of the team’s 21 homers. Junior C Eric Fryer was not as good as he had been his first two seasons, but he was still plenty good enough to be drafted in the tenth round by the Brewers after a 322/407/448, +10 season.

Looking at the rest of the Buckeye offense, sophomore 1B Justin Miller continued to improve, emerging as an above average (+3 RAA) hitter, albeit a low secondary average for a first baseman. He may return to his original position of catcher next year in Fryer’s absence. At third, junior Tony Kennedy stepped in, hitting for little power but posting a .397 OBA and +5 runs. True freshman Brian DeLucia earned more time as the year progressed, and although he was average in 47 PA, showed good promise with the leather. I expect him to earn the job outright in ’08.

The middle infield situation was clouded all year, when finally a freshman double play combination emerged. Zoeller started the year at second with true freshman Cory Rupert at short. But Rupert’s hitting was very poor early, and his fielding not great either, so Zoeller moved to short and fellow true freshman Cory Kovanda was installed at second. Eventually, though, Zoeller’s defense was untenable (Zoeller was not great at second base, let alone short), and so he was shifted to DH and Rupert came back in. Neither Rupert or Kovanda hit well, but both seemed to be getting more comfortable at the end of the season, and were solid in the field then too. Rupert hit 257/283/303, -10 in 113 PA while Kovanda hit 289/352/325, -8 in 121 PA.

Left field was manned by sophomore JB Shuck most of the time, and he rapped out enough singles for a 342/397/401, +5 line marred by a terrible slump at the end of the season. Senior Jacob Howell often served as DH due to his continuing hamstring problems, hitting 322/371/429, +2 despite having limited use of his excellent speed. That left a spot for freshman Ryan Dew in RF, and after a hot start he tailed off to 269/354/338, -5.

OSU pitching and defense was fourth in the Big Ten with 5.27 park adjusted RA/G, versus the 6.09 average, despite serious injury problems on the staff. Senior Dan DeLucia, the ace for the past two years, was 2-0 in three starts before requiring Tommy John surgery; he will receive a medical redshirt and pitch for the Bucks in 2008. Junior Cory Luebke stepped up big as the staff ace, going 9-1 with a 3.54 RA, 3.19 eRA, 7.5 KG, and +33 RAA, enough to be Big Ten Pitcher of the Year. He was signed by San Diego as a third round pick.

Sophomore JB Shuck lost some of his form from his freshman season, as he did at the plate, but took his turn each weekend and put up a 5.58 RA and +5 RAA, although his 6.56 eRA was scary. As a freshman he benefited from a low percentage of hits on BIP; in 2007, he was hit for 32.5%. An injury to projected #4 starter, sophomore Josh Barerra, kept OSU from ever establishing a stable rotation. Barerra was 4-1, +2 in 8 games and 5 starts in his shortened campaign. A variety of freshman were used as starters: Theron Minium (1-2, 13 G, 5 GS, 7.88, -6); Eric Best (3-1, 20 G, 4 GS, 4.97, +5); and Josh Edgin (2-2, 19 G, 7 GS, 6.55, -2). Eventually, would-be relievers, junior Rory Meister (4-7, 22 G, 5 GS, 3 SV, 5.80, +1) and sophomore Jake Hale (4-3, 26 G, 4 GS, 4.64, +11) got starts. By tournament time, Hale had reestablished himself in his 2006 rotation slot, while Meister was back to being the closer. Senior Trey Fausnaugh also was a key reliever, appearing in 16 games with a 6.95 RA and -2 RAA.

What was incredible about OSU pitching was the degree to which it was left-handed dominated. DeLucia, Luebke, Shuck, Barerra, Minium, Best, and Edgin are all southpaws. OSU lefties were 25-11 in 363 innings for +36 RAA; but the righties were just 13-13 in 160 innings for -1 RAA.

While it is way too early to make a prognosis for 2008, my early impression is that the 2003 Dodgers will be the most comparable team of recent major league memory. Losing the top three hitters from the team will be a difficult pill to swallow, and while youngsters like Dew, Kovanda, and Rupert figure to improve, it’s difficult to see a lot of power. On the other hand, even after losing Luebke, the pitching should be deep and outstanding. Without formally studying the matter, it has been my observation that freshman pitchers often make huge steps forward with experience under their belt. But it won’t take many to fill out a great staff; if Best can maintain his form, and just one of Minium, Edgin, and Barerra can be a solid starter, then you have a pretty good three-fourths of the rotation plus a lefty and righty relief ace. I think it all points towards a sub-par .500 type season, but Bob Todd has surprised before and I still think the program is in excellent shape, although it would be nice to find some pop.

My Top 60 Starters, 11-20

20. Don Sutton (.543 NW%, 111 ARA, +29 WAA, +102 WAR)
19. Nolan Ryan (.530, 110, +27, +102)
18. Carl Hubbell (.600, 141, +47, +97)
17. Randy Johnson (.661, 130, +46, +99)
16. Jim Palmer (.559, 127, +46, +101)
15. Bob Gibson (.583, 127, +47, +101)
14. Phil Niekro (.552, 111, +32, +107)
13. Steve Carlton (.568, 113, +35, +107)
12. Bert Blyleven (.537, 118, +42, +111)
11. Gaylord Perry (.542, 114, +38, +112)

SUTTON & RYAN: They are very close, almost identical, in terms of value. I went with Ryan because his style certainly relied less on his defense. But it is amazing how big the disconnect in public opinion is, when in fact there is a good case to be made that they are equals. I’m not saying it’s puzzling that Ryan gets more ink, but it’s my impression that 90% of fans would be incredulous if you claimed these two belonged in the same league.

JOHNSON: Johnson could easily be ahead of Palmer, given the Ryan-type style issues, and the quality of Palmer’s teams. Perhaps with a career rejuvenation back in Arizona, he could move up…he only averaged about three WAR in two years in New York.

BLYLEVEN: I think enough has probably been written about him in the blogosphere, don’t you?

Seeing Niekro, Blyleven, and Perry ahead of Hubbell, Gibson, and Palmer may seem strange to a lot of people, but it again is a consequence of looking at career value above replacement. I’m running out of comments to make, because everybody already knows about these guys, and rating them highly doesn’t need any justification. We are also starting to get into the area where there are big gaps in WAR that make it tougher for me to just stick one pitcher in front of another because I feel like it.

My Top 60 Starters, 21-30

30. Mike Mussina (.622 NW%, 126 ARA, +37 WAA, +82 WAR)
29. Curt Schilling (.606, 130, +40, +83)
28. Ed Walsh (.602, 137, +44, +86)
27. Miner Brown (.605, 131, +44, +88)
26. Tom Glavine (.583, 119, +35, +93)
25. Whitey Ford (.646, 131, +42, +86)
24. Bob Feller (.601, 122, +38, +91)
23. Pedro Martinez (.680, 157, +53, +89)
22. Robin Roberts (.551, 114, +32, +97)
21. Fergie Jenkins (.557, 117, +36, +98)

MUSSINA: As we start hitting active pitchers, we have to be careful about jumping the gun, although as I’ve mentioned previously, the low baseline used here makes it hard for pitchers to lose too much ground.

SCHILLING: I’ve never been a particular fan of Schilling, but he’s got the credentials to be here. He’s always struck me as a self promoter (bloody sock), crybaby (Ben Davis’ bunt to breakup the perfect game), or a combination thereof (taking a bat to the Questec camera). But the man can pitch, and as MHS would want me to point out, his playoff performances have been unreal.

FORD & BROWN: These two are a pretty good match, stats-wise. They each pitched for dominant teams, and then all of their major measures match up pretty well, except the Chairman’s W-L record is more impressive. I give Ford a boost for pitching 146 World Series innings with a 2.71 ERA (although he was “only” 10-8), but Brown himself did some solid work in October (5-4).

FELLER: He is low here compared to other lists, because he is the great pitcher most hurt by my refusal to give WWII credit. If you conservatively give him sixteen more WAR, he’s in the top fifteen, at least.

MARTINEZ: There is no pitcher in history with a better ARA or NW%, although if he does pitch some more, he’ll likely decline in those categories (whether his standing on the all-time lists will decline is another matter). Some will claim that he is not durable enough, but his +89 WAR puts him in this class. I put him ahead of Glavine and Feller because of the (very slight) peak/WAA consideration (he is eighth all time in WAA, with only the top eight pitchers on my list ranking ahead of him), but it’s possible that he’ll work his way over them (and others) in WAR on his own. Or he could be almost done. Either way, he’s one of the greats.

ROBERTS & JENKINS: Bill James has written a few times about how they are a pretty good match for each other stylistically, and in the end, they had nearly equivalent value. They tower above the other pitcher that James put in that group (Catfish Hunter).

My Top 60 Starters, 31-40

40. Kevin Brown (.589 NW%, 122 ARA, +33 WAA, +78 WAR)
39. Stan Coveleski (.574, 126, +35, +78)
38. Juan Marichal (.614, 118, +30, +79)
37. Tommy John (.545, 107, +18, +83)
36. Ted Lyons (.559, 112, +25, +82)
35. John Smoltz (.557, 127, +36, +80)
34. Eppa Rixey (.514, 111, +22, +85)
33. Vic Willis (.529, 114, +26, +82)
32. Red Ruffing (.522, 111, +23, +83)
31. Red Faber (.552, 114, +27, +84)

BROWN: I don’t have any insight on this, but I assume he’ll be snubbed by the Hall voters, for a number of reasons. First, he’s not well-liked, by anybody. Second, he never got the credit he was due when he was pitching, at least I never thought that he did. Third, he is the least-impressive of a barrage of great pitchers who will hit the ballot within a few years of his doing so (Smoltz, Glavine, Maddux, Clemens, Johnson, Schilling), with Mussina and Pedro probably not that far behind. I think they are all worthy of the Hall, but I think Brown may have to wait until he’s long gone and the numbers speak louder then the other factors.

MARCICHAL: I was surprised to see the Dominican Dandy so low; he certainly does better in the W-L measures then he does in runs allowed. Bill James originally rated him in front of Gibson, but came around in the second edition of the Historical Abstract. Still a unique pitcher and one I would have loved to have watched.

JOHN: The first of two eligible pitchers on the ballot but not in the Hall. John is a career value special, as nobody that follows has less then 20 WAA. John recently agitated that he should be in Cooperstown, and while I agree, he can take comfort in knowing that barring some new advance in sports medicine, his name will remain in the forefront longer then a lot of pitchers who were better then he was.

SMOLTZ: He gets no extra credit here for the higher leverage innings in his three years of closing, either; of course, I also compared those innings to the lower replacement level for starters (.390), so things even out a bit.

WILLIS: Willis, a fairly recent Veterans’ Committee pick, is often put down as a bad one but I just don’t see it. His win-loss isn’t very impressive, but +63 WCR isn’t horrible. But he does well in run-based metrics, and he had three 10 WAR seasons, more then contemporaries like Plank and McGinnity. I see this moer as a wrong righted then a grievous blow to the sanctity of the Hall of Fame.

I Can't Help Myself

My Top 60 Starters, 41-50

50. Jack Powell (.508 NW%, 106 ARA, +14 WAA, +75 WAR)
49. Rube Waddell (.561, 125, +32, +74)
48. Dazzy Vance (.596, 125, +32, +74)
47. Don Drysdale (.535, 118, +29, +77)
46. Gus Wynn (.531, 106, +13, +77)
45. Luis Tiant (.559, 117, +29, +78)
44. Joe McGinnity (.603, 119, +29, +77)
43. Hal Newhouser (.565, 125, +35, +76)
42. Jim Bunning (.547, 115, +27, +79)
41. Billy Pierce (.534, 121, +32, +78)

POWELL: His career record was 245-256, but he pitched for bad (.462 Mate) teams. His neutralized record of 255-246 is good for +59 WCR, but he does much better in a run-based analysis, coming at +75. He has no peak to speak of, especially for a pitcher of his time, but has a lot of value against a low baseline over the course of almost 4400 innings.

WADDELL & VANCE: As you can see, these two are almost a perfect match, except Vance’s W-L record is more impressive and he was sane (and right-handed). They were both strikeout pitchers, but have wildly different career paths. Waddell was done by age 33 and dead by 36. Vance had cups of coffee at ages 24 and 27, but didn’t establish himself until age 31. In the end, the shooting star and the late bloomer had pretty much equal value.

DRYSDALE: I know that I will catch flak, if anyone cares, for putting Drysdale ahead of Koufax. But from a career comparison against a replacement baseline, it is tough to avoid, as Drysdale has twelve more WAR and is only four behind in WAA. There is absolutely no question that Koufax was the Dodgers’ ace, but four or five years don’t override the career. Neither lasted much past thirty, but Drysdale pitched 1000 more innings.

WYNN: The lowest-ranking 300 game winner, and perhaps sliding him past Drysdale was inappropriate, but certainly a fine pitcher.

NEWHOUSER: Some people take away credit because two of his best seasons came during the war. 1945 was his best, but actually 1946 was a little better then 1944. Anyway, the principle here is that a major league win is worth the same no matter what. Top five years of +49.8 WAR is a dead ringer for Koufax. In fact, he had a six year string from 1944-49 of 10.7, 12.8, 11, 7.5, 7.5, 7.8.

PIERCE: Pierce is the highest ranking pitcher on my list not in the Hall of Fame who is either 1) eligible or 2) not through to the Vets Committee yet. There are two eligible pitchers ahead of him who have not yet been inducted, but they are both still on the main ballot.

Homers in (Win) Context

As Barry Bonds closes in on Hank Aaron’s record, there will surely be a lot of discussion about which player’s accomplishments are more impressive, who is more worthy of the record, etc. From a sabermetric perspective, there are a number of different approaches available to shed light on the comparison. These generally attempt to evaluate not only the raw totals but the context in which they were achieved.

One of the most basic examples is the use of relative or adjusted statistics, comparing the frequency of home runs hit by a player to that of his league, and using this to give a plus/minus figure against the league average, or to restate that figure as a new raw number of homers expected in a different context. These results might be based on the difference or ratio of the player’s performance to that of his league.

Another approach along the same lines is to look at the number of standard deviations away from the mean the player’s performance is. This has the presumed effect of accounting for league quality, with the theory that a lower standard deviation means a higher-quality league.

One can also look at ranks or percentiles of performance within the league. Under this approach, leading the league in home runs is considered equally impressive to leading the league in a different year. The best of a given time are assumed to be equal to the best of another time.

There are also more complex approaches that attempt to project performance in a different context while maintaining the same run or win value of the player’s overall performance. Examples of these approaches include Bill James’ “Willie Davis Method” and Clay Davenport’s Davenport Translations.

All of these approaches have their pros and cons. Relative methods are easy to understand, but often give results that are outlandish (ex. Babe Ruth would hit 100+ home runs in a modern context if he bettered the league home run rate by the same ratio as he did in his great seasons). Rank and percentile methods assume that leading a deadball league with 11 homers is inherently equivalent to leading a modern league with 55 homers.

The standard deviation and translation methods have less obvious flaws. The biggest hurdle to the translation methods is complexity; the principles behind Davenport’s have been explained, but not the details. The Willie Davis method is based on a flawed run estimator (basic Runs Created), which makes all of the results somewhat circumspect.

My approach is similar in spirit to those, but cuts out a good deal of complexity with maybe a small loss in theoretical purity. It is hardly a unique or revolutionary approach, and for all I know may have been published by another analyst in nearly identical form, but if it has I do not recall seeing it. As I have explained in previous posts on other subjects, I begin my analysis of baseball performance with the premise that a major league win today is worth the same as a major league win in 1961 is worth the same as a major league win in 1927…you are of course free to disagree with this premise, but it is where I am coming from.

Saying that a win is a win is not immediately helpful when moving away from comparing estimated win contributions of players to comparing player performance in specific component categories, like home runs. However, in a linear weight construct, we can put a run or win value on each home run that the batter hits. By comparing the win value of player’s home runs, we can avoid making any assumptions about how difficult it was to hit home runs in the given contexts, and focus on what the home runs the player actually hit were actually worth in his own context.

After all, home runs are only valuable because they contribute to wins. Hitting 70 home runs, even in a modern high-scoring context, contributes more wins to a player’s team then hitting 10 home runs to lead the league in the dead ball era. It may have been “harder” to hit the ten homers, they may have stuck out more from the other players in that time in terms of standard deviations or differences in frequency, but that does not matter from a pure value perspective. All that matters is the number of wins each player contributed via the home run in his own time and place. And of course we also started with the premise that a major league win is of equal value regardless of the year in which it was achieved.

So how does this approach work? Let’s assume that the run value of a homer is always 1.4 runs. This is obviously not correct; the coefficient of a home run is variable, although it is not nearly as variable as that of some other events. You could of course use Base Runs or some other approach to find a unique coefficient for the HR in each context, but I am going to just use 1.4, while acknowledging that it is imprecise.

Let’s look at Roger Maris’ 1961 season. His 61 home runs are estimated to be worth 1.4*61 = 85.4 runs. We will assume that the runs per win factor is equal to the total number of runs per game in the league that season. This again is imprecise, but not to too great a degree, and it makes things very simple. In 1961 the AL average was 9.06 RPG. We can also account for how Maris’ home park changed the value of runs in terms of wins. I have the ’61 Yankee Stadium PF at .94. That means that the prevailing RPW in Maris’ context was PF*RPG or .94*9.06 = 8.52. Putting it all together, the win value of Maris’ home runs was 1.4*HR/(PF*RPG) or 1.4*61/(.94*9.06) or 85.4/8.52 = 10.02 wins.

We can keep Maris’ figure at 10.02, but homer-wins are not in a scale that we are familiar with, and we can easily convert this into a number of homers in an average major league context of 9 RPG. All we have to do is figure out how many homers one would need in a 9 RPG context to get 10.02 homer-wins. The answer is 10.02*9/1.4 = 64.4, or we can easily express that New HR = HR/(PF*RPG)*9, since we are assuming that the home run is worth 1.4 runs, always.

We can now figure equivalent win-value home runs for all players. Let’s look at a Gavvy Cravath, leading the NL in longballs with 19 in 1913. The NL RPG was 8.3, and Cravath’s park had a PF of 1.04. Cravath therefore had 19.8 adjusted home runs. Since this is kind of a frivolous stat, I’ll give these adjusted home runs a less serious name, Gavvys. I’m using Cravath here because he is an example that leading the lead in home runs did not have the same value in 1913 as it did in 1961. Hitting home runs in 1913 was, as always, beneficial to the team, but 19 homers just do not produce that many wins. Again, it is feasible that Cravath’s performance was more difficult to achieve or more impressive then Maris’. Whether it was or not is irrelevant when considering the win value they had.

I calculated Gavvys for all of the members of the 500 home run club (through 2006, considering only performance up to 2006. Each season was evaluated individually and the totals were summed for a career). Here is the list sorted by Gavvys:



No player’s home runs have had a higher win impact then Hank Aaron’s, and he has a wide enough margin that his “record” may sustain Bonds’ challenge. Ironically, Bonds has 755 Gavvys, matching Aaron’s real total. Only Foxx and Williams played in high enough scoring environments to see their modified figures drop below 500. Here is the list again, this time sorted by Gavvys minus home runs.



The overall trend is for Gavvys>homers, which is most likely because 4.5 is not the true long term mean; we could use 1 as the mean, or 1000, or leave them in terms of homer-wins, and the order of the career leader list would hold, so 4.5 works just fine.

In order to find the best single season Gavvy performance, I also looked at the 50 home run club. Obviously, these seasons will not represent all of the best single seasons in terms of Gavvys, but doubtlessly the record-holder will be found. And the 50 in a season club is a natural one to consider, just like the 500 in a career. The list is sorted by Gavvys, and “DIFF” again is Gavvys less actual home runs:



Bonds’ 2001 and McGwire’s 1998 still top the list, with Maris’ 1961 holding against all of the other times McGwire and Sosa beat the raw total. Ruth’s single season luster fades a bit as does his career total, while multiple seasons tumble out of the 50 HR club.

Take Gavvys for what they are worth--they only focus on one single event and attempt to restate it as a win-equivalent figure in a certain context. They are based on the assumptions I discussed earlier and they are by no means the be all and end all of accounting for context in determining the best home run hitters. I do believe that they represent an interesting way to evaluate home runs while keeping an eye on the ultimate goal of the game (winning), and evaluating them in that light.

Let me stress again that Gavvys are not a projection of how many home runs a player would have hit in a nine RPG context, and do not attempt to adjust for how difficult it was to hit home runs in the player’s environment (RPG coupled with PF is to some extent a proxy for this, but that is not how it is being used here). What they are is a number of home runs in a 9 RPG context that would be equal in win value to the win value of the player’s home runs in his actual context.