Chattanooga Lookouts Return

Al H will continues to run the frfanchise...

Introducing the Seattle Pilots

Tony P owner and operator....

Who is the Worst ATB Player?

After yesterdays post regarding the best ATB player to draft, Brian B posed a great question – who is the worst player in ATB history?  We all want the best players and spend plenty of time trying to determine who is worthy of a draft pick, but who we should  be avoiding is almost as important.

There are a couple of ways to go about this.  In ATB 11, shortstop Woody English batted .178 / .247 / .199 in 473 at bats for World Team Police and by all accounts this is the single worst season I've come across.  But English hasn't been drafted in years and likely never will be again, so in order to avoid a short article, let's widen the net.

Instead, we'll ask who the worst regular that owners still want on their team.  To do this, we'll only allow players who've been drafted each of the past three years and accumulated over 900 at bats

158 players meet this criteria and Keith Hernandez is the worst batter, by a fairly large margin.  In 924 plate appearances the slick fielding first basemen has recorded a .541 OPS (.209 / .261 / .281). 

He's great in the field – Ex/50 – so maybe we should let him off the hook.  Not surprisingly, the 18 worst batters all have plus fielding, either in terms of error rate, range, or both.  The first batter on the list who's a liability in the field is Howard Johnson. 

Johnson is a great example of how crappy memories can be.  Most owners with 6+ years of tenure will remember the breakout campaign HoJo enjoyed a few year back – slamming 31 home runs and driving in 108 for the Willets Point "Mechanics" (incidentally, owner Matt B took the season off this year).  This is the same "Mechanic" team that was lucky enough to have that magical year from Greg Maddux (23-3, 1.92 ERA) and the combo led them to a 90 win season. 

Since then however, Johnson's been abysmal, and over the last three seasons has batted .213 / .268 / .387, and combine that with Fr/112 defense, he has really hurt is teams.  Still, his 355 resims are solid enough at .201 / .301 / .433 and it's understandable why he's still drafted.

Johnson dropped to part time duty the last two seasons (less than 300 PA in each), but what about players that get 500 plate appearances a year – who is the worst of that lot?  Pop Lloyd has a .620 OPS but sports Ex/75 defense, so next up is Buddy Myer at .661 OPS.  He's bad, but you could do a lot worse than a .336 OBP from a middle infielder, especially considering the last two seasons his played in extreme pitchers parks.

Maybe we need to do this by position – here's a chart by position, with blue shade for full time players and the peach shade for part time players:

What say you – who are the worst ATB players at the moment?  Personally, my vote goes to either Paul Molitor or Keith Hernandez.

Shamokin Miners Return

Mike M continues the tradition...

Who is the Most Deserving #1 Pick

Oscar Charleston has ruined all the fun. 

Ever since he's joined the league the 1^st pick in the draft is no longer in doubt – Charleston's been selected 1^st in each of the past three years.  In other words, after his amazing showing in the 500 resims after the ATB 14 season, Charleston has widely been regarded as the best player in the league.

I am not sure this is still holds true.

In the resims, Charleston batted an out of this world .338 / .442 / .625 and followed this up with an ever more other worldly .352 / .458 / .650.  Add in stellar defense (Ex/55 Vg Arm) and selecting him 1^st was a simple choice.

Unfortunately, the center fielder has never again approached this level of greatness.  You may recall the era we use in ATB was tweaked a few years ago, and a few all time greats saw abnormal drops in results – Lou Gehrig, Ted Williams, and Charleston where the most notable.  In the subsequent 355 resims, Charleston batted .324 / .407 / .604 and followed it up even further declining campaigns in ATB 16 and 17. 

Putting his slash lines in chronological order:

.338 / .442 / .625 – 500 resims

.352 / .458 / .650 – ATB 15

.324 / .407 / .604 – 355 Resims

.318 / .409 / .589 – ATB 16

.289 / .380 / .548 – ATB 17

To be fair, Charleston played in fairly extreme pitchers parks the last two seasons so for our intents I am fine calling the 355 resim a fair approximation of what to expect.  A 1.010 OPS is great, but still a long way off from the previous de facto #1 draft pick, Babe Ruth, who scores a 1.128 OPS.

In the 355 resims Ruth batted .278 / .450 / .670 and taken home back to back MVP Awards.  Granted, his defense is not only worse than Charleston's, it's also a team liability at Av/168.  Or is it? 

According to the some of the defensive studies we've discussed that 168 error rate costs the average of just 2 runs per season to a normal team.  Surely his bat can make up that difference.

Let's not forget Charleston's defense though, which according the studies saves a whopping 22 runs per season, which leaves Ruth 24 total runs to make up for.

We can convert each players 355 resim wOBA to runs using formula's found here and do a full comparison.

This is getting confusing, here's a chart.

 

Wow, that is close.  And frankly I am not confident enough in the margin of error in the defensive studies to declare Charleston the winner here, especially considering his last two seasons where is wOBA averaged .409.  If we were to us that number, Ruth ends up with a 5 run advantage.

What should Brad do?  Probably decide based upon the stadium he selects prior to the draft.  Now if we only had a great way to compare Pedro Martinez to these two.  The best pitcher in the league went 21-6 with a 1.57 ERA and 0.77 WHIP last season, and has his own strong case for #1 pick as well.

Downsouth Brews Return

Allen C remains the owner...

The Lakeview Zeros Return

Piloted by Brian B...

Draft Board Posted

Everyone should have received an invite to access, and here is a direct link.

I also added a newish utility to the draft day page - owners often send me requests to find out the error rate of a player they want to create.  Open the spreadsheet, follow the directions, and you can self help!

Introducing the New Amsterdam Highlanders

Last season's Albuquerque Heisenbergs went bankrupt after the owner went AWOL. Some sort of legal trouble for the old owner, according to the interim GM.

Luckily, a Dutch billionaire came in and bought the franchise for pennies on the dollar and is moving it to New Amsterdam. They'll be known as the New Amsterdam Highlanders.

..... Greg M

1800s Fielding Ratings Updated on the Site and Blog

The Player Cards and the main Batter Rating report have been updated.

Here is a re-print of this morning email too:

I know this is fairly short notice, but I have decided to improve the defensive error rates for our 1800s player set.  There are some very significant and meaningful changes.

Our newest owner, Joel, inquired why the 1800s players had such poor error rates, even when they had better than average fielding percentages.  This was because DMB never created the leage average error rate for years prior to 1895 and I simply used those for the entire player set.  

This was a poor way to do it.

Joel's questioning led me to investigate and I can determine these error rates on my own (using the Lahman DB).  Thanks Joel!!!

As one might expect, error rates became worse and worse the earlier back in time I went.  As an example, second basemen averaged 97 errors per 100 games in 1875, but only 44 in 1895.  As a result, the players I created from the earliest years were heavily penalized.

The results as wonderful as they are accurate, but they also will throw a monkey wrench into draft day.  Here are some of the major changes:

• George Hall: Av/342 down to Av/171
• Ross Barnes: Ex/124 down to Ex/56
• Ed Swartwood: Av/209 down to Av/131
• Fred Dunlap: Vg/111 down to Vg/76
• Orator Shaffer: Ex/105 down to Ex/71

There are others.  In all, 84 player seasons changed, though, only 36 of these were drafted last year.

Attached is a file of all the changes.  The website reports are not updated yet, but will work on them ASAP.

Also - the Stadium Draft begins Wednesday, 8 picks per day, in reverse order of the player draft.  I should have the draft board up by tonight.