the baddest muthafucka on the planet
click it.

Year Team         Lg. Age Org Lvl AAB   W   K  HR  23  WAL  CON  POW  AVG
1994 Danville     App  17 Atl Rk  143   9  25   1  11 .059 .825 .102 .336
1994 GCL Braves   GCL  17 Atl Rk   95  16  19   2   6 .144 .800 .105 .221
1995 Macon        SAL  18 Atl A   537  70 122  25  46 .115 .773 .171 .277
1996 Durham       Caro 19 Atl A   243  42  54  17  17 .147 .778 .180 .313
1996 Greenville   Sou  19 Atl AA  157  17  34  12  11 .098 .783 .187 .369
1996 Richmond     IL   19 Atl AAA  45   1   9   5   4 .022 .800 .250 .378
1996 Atlanta Brav NL   19 Atl MLB 106   7  29   5   8 .062 .726 .169 .217
1997 Atlanta Brav NL   20 Atl MLB 402  60 107  18  19 .130 .734 .125 .231
1998 Atlanta Brav NL   21 Atl MLB 586  44 129  31  41 .070 .780 .158 .271
1999 Atlanta Brav NL   22 Atl MLB 594  85 103  26  40 .125 .827 .134 .275
2000 Atlanta Brav NL   23 Atl MLB 661  68 100  36  42 .093 .849 .139 .303
2001 Atlanta Brav NL   24 Atl MLB 634  59 142  34  27 .085 .776 .124 .251
2002 Atlanta Brav NL   25 Atl MLB 566  93 135  35  34 .141 .761 .160 .264
2003 Atlanta Brav NL   26 Atl MLB 601  58 125  36  30 .088 .792 .139 .277
2004 Atlanta Brav NL   27 Atl MLB 572  74 147  29  38 .115 .743 .158 .261
2005 Atlanta Brav NL   28 Atl MLB 593  79 112  51  27 .118 .811 .162 .263

yeah, you know it. it's andruw jones. he was the most valuable player in the national league in 2005. there's also an award for the most valuable player. that was given to albert pujols. they gave it to him because he was the best hitter:

Year Team         Lg. Age Org Lvl AAB   W   K  HR  23  WAL  CON  POW  AVG
2000 Potomac      Caro 20 Stl A    81   7   8   2   9 .080 .901 .151 .284
2000 Peoria       Midw 20 Stl A   397  43  37  17  38 .098 .907 .153 .324
2000 Memphis      PCL  20 Stl AAA  14   1   2   0   1 .067 .857 .083 .214
2001 Stl Cardinal NL   21 Stl MLB 597  78  93  37  51 .116 .844 .175 .329
2002 Stl Cardinal NL   22 Stl MLB 594  81  69  34  42 .120 .884 .145 .314
2003 Stl Cardinal NL   23 Stl MLB 596  89  65  43  52 .130 .891 .179 .359
2004 Stl Cardinal NL   24 Stl MLB 601  91  52  46  53 .132 .913 .180 .331
2005 Stl Cardinal NL   25 Stl MLB 594 106  65  41  40 .151 .891 .153 .330

albert made the rarely-seen leap from a-ball to the majors after one year of professional baseball. that's not true. he almost certainly played professional baseball somewhere before. . . .

ok here's a bio. he played in the jayhawk league in 1999. he was a shortstop. then he went to the arizona fall league and learned third base. then he played in the midwest league in 2000. then, through a series of coincidences, he played a full season in the majors. basically, he killed the ball in spring training, somebody got hurt, he played on opening day, he killed the ball, he continued to kill the ball. so it's not all coincidence. some of it is talent.

understatement.

albert pujols is clearly a way better hitter than andruw jones. so why is andruw more valuable? you got it: defense. andruw jones is the best fielding center fielder in the history of the game. he also had a damn good year at the plate. not nearly as good as albert pujols, but enough to be more valuable. it's close, though. albert pujols is not a terrible choice.

i'm supposed to argue my point. what the hell am i going to say? you either agree with me or you don't. if you're a sabermetric type, which most of my readers probably are, you'll disagree. if you're a baseball player, you'll probably agree. you'll at least agree that defense is undervalued these days. sabermetrics has tipped the balance.

i've said it before: defense matters more in close games. defense is a low-run environment skill, along with baserunning, hitting for contact, and striking people out.

let me talk to the sabermetric types for a minute. your value model is based on runs. win shares, vorp, warp, whatever, the more runs something is worth, the better it is. this is a flawed model because runs do not always have the same value. in a close game, runs are much more valuable than in a blowout. if you're behind by 5, you need at least 6 runs to win. that's 6 runs per win. if you're behind by 1, you need 2 runs to win. that's 2 runs per win. those runs are three times as valuable.

it's all about wins. i think we can agree. the logical consequence then is that our model must reflect that fact. our model must reflect the fact that different skills have different win values per run.

you could measure win value pretty easily. take you run model. whatever it is. look at a game. calculate the total run value produced in that game. for each player, divide his run value by the total run value. that's his win value.

the model won't be perfect because close and late situations tend to be more important than the early game. but it will be a hell of a lot better than what's out there. and the interesting thing is it's not even a new formula. it's a minor modification to what's already out there.

another theoretically interesting exercise would be to only award points to the team that wins. for that team, calculate the total offensive and defensive run value, and distribute accordingly. for a blowout, where many players contributed many runs, there would be a small number of points given to a large number of players. for a 1-0 victory that featured a home run, the guy that hit the home run would get a lot of points, as would the pitcher and the defense (most of those points going to the shortstop, center fielder, second baseman, and catcher).

anyway, these are steps that can be taken. win value is within our grasp. we are scraping the theoretical limits of run value. it's time for the next step.
- posted by julien @ 10:58 PM