Unfortunately for the Cubs, Crow-Armstrong's slump has overlapped almost completely with the slump of the player generally believed to be the best Cub before the season began, Kyle Tucker. Both have hit in the .160s during August, and both have experienced a pronounced power outage for about a month.
Like Mr. Cicotte, I believe that it was Bret and not Aaron who had the big power and production season which you mention.
Tucker finished 5th in ALMVP voting two years ago and has made the All-Star team the last four seasons but as it stands the second-best Cub is Nico Hoerner, who has never made an All-Star team nor received an MVP vote
I'd like to offer an insightful comment, but I don't think I'm qualified. My interest in the big professional league sports drastically tailed off after the Cubs won in 2016, and then the leagues starting embracing woke-mania. Now I just follow pro golf.
Its ok though because the Cubs completed my Chicago sports fan life dream (since I grew up near the Windy City). The Bears won the 1986 Super Bowl with that tremendous defense (and just enough offense managed by Jim McMahon and a past-his-prime Walter Payton). Jordan and the Bulls dominated the 90's. The White Sox finally broke through and won the WS in 2005 with that amazing performance by the starting rotation in the playoffs and WS. Then the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup three times in the 2010's. Now that I live near Baltimore, all my friends are Orioles homers, so I vaguely pay some attention to that team. Guess they significantly underperformed this season, based on last year's success and Spring expectations.
That the Bears only won one Super Bowl in that 84-91 run is quite disappointing. Yes they lost to the eventual Super Bowl champions in the playoffs four times (84 49ers, 87 Redskins, 88 49ers, 90 Giants) but the middle two games were at home which means you could argue they should have won the Super Bowl those years as well
The Redskins had their number. 2 huge wins in Chicago. Arguably the Redskins toughest win ever. In 1987 which led to SB 22 as you said. The other was beating a good team but an ineffective Doug Flutie the year before.
Everyone was hoping for a Giants/Bears showdown in the NFC championship game as they didn't play that season and the Redskins spoiled it. Maybe Gibbs was a better coach than Ditka
I would say Theismann was above average but to win three SB with three different QB is impressive. While Gibbs had a WinPct of .621 this is not the highest of even his contemporaries; Shula's was .676 although Gibbs bested him in SB17
Yes, agreed. I considered Theismann when I said decent. He was definitely above average. He was actually really really good for three years. I think Gibbs was really hurt when he came back that hurt his winning percentage because he retired the first time with the best winning percentage ever.
As a sports fan, I had a 16-year period where I saw my favorite teams (Giants, Yankees, Devils) win 11 titles. Therefore their recent droughts haven't bothered me. However, where I live we have multiple teams in each sport to choose from and if one is a fan of the other 6 they have won no titles in the last 30 years. Both basketball teams are working on 50-year droughts at this point
> For example, Ichiro Suzuki came over from Japan in 2001 and won the MVP and Rookie of the Year awards as the Seattle Mariners went a record 116-46. His ratio was 1.77. Similarly, teammate Aaron Boone had a 1.58 ratio while driving in an improbable 141 runs.
• Because of the ubiquity of reruns, Ashley Crow is probably most recognizable due to her role as Debra's sister on Everybody Loves Raymond, although later on she had a recurring role on Heroes. However, she was also the mom in Little Big League, a movie in which a 12-year-old boy inherits the Minnesota Twins and names himself manager with Timothy Busfield playing first base. Yes, really. Anyway for her to play a baseball mom then become an actual baseball mom is pretty remarkable.
• In your list of NFL players who became actors you mention Bernie Williams, but you probably meant Bernie Casey
• In a 1995* episode of The Simpsons they are making fun of the CableACE awards by giving the Most Promising New Series award to Reruns of Starsky & Hutch. They had the son of the guy who played Huggy Bear accept the award, of course not knowing that the actual son of the guy who played Huggy Bear was a 15-year-old freshman at Notre Dame High School and would later play seven seasons for the Oakland Raiders. The son's wife was the coach of LSU and led them to multiple Sweet 16's
If one believes in WAR, 37.5 percent of PCA's value comes from his defense, which unless you are Steve Sax or Chuck Knoblauch does not tend to slump. I think the writers are looking for an excuse to not give MVP to Shohei and Judge every year, so if they can plausibly give it to PCA and Big Dumper, they will
What bothers me about the OPS ratio is that it is technically endogenous i.e in winning games your star players will, on average, be doing better than the games you lose. Fo example, assume WAR accurately calculates how good players are. Why might two players with high WAR have different OPS. The could happen if the teammates of player 1 are significantly more mediocre than the teammates of player 2. In this case Team 2 will have a much easier time winning a game when the star is having an off night since other players are more likely to step up. The players for Team 1 are much less likely to step up when their star does poorly..
An example of this might be Ohtani's scores being similar in wins and losses. The Dodgers have a lot of good players so even if Ohtani is having a bad night they are only a bit less likely to win.
Steve, from the 15 sad comments, one should begin to consider that Americans have given up on baseball in the 21st century. Even in August, ESPN and most sports media are covering pointless pre-season NFL games more than Major League baseball.
The real question is about the Vuelta that begins on Saturday.
Will Jonas win? Almeida? Ayuso? Matteo? Sepp?
Almeida and Ayuso are on the same time but they are famously incapable of cooperating. Jonas, Matteo, and Sepp are on the same team and they cooperate fine but there was a funny/crazy/tragic situation in the Vuelta 2023 that led to Sepp winning by mistake, ahead of Jonas and Primož. The Jumbo-Visma team did win the entire podium, though, which is unheard of in professional cycling... and they won not just the Vuelta that year but also the Giro and the Tour, which is also unheard of.
I'd suggest a team's W/L rec with and without the (position) player in the lineup is an excellent rule of thumb in MVP voting. (It is a broader form of the "did the player's team make the playoffs?") Few commonly used stats show second order effects like what happens to players before and after you in the lineup. Third order social effects - clubhouse manner, etc. - are probably very consequential but what isn't measured isn't managed, especially by new school quant managers.
Or to suggest a tweak to your proposal, considerably more mathematically complex, but a cousin of mine: how often did a player's OPS in a win marginally contribute to that win? Two home runs in a game when every starter gets a hit in a 12-1 win at Colorado is less important than 2-1 at Milwaukee...Enhanced Game Winning RBI (EGWRBI) sponsored by AWS?
Baseball Reference calculates the change in win probability after every plate appearance, then aggregates them. The career leaders are Bonds, Ruth, Williams, Mays, and Aaron, and the current active leaders are Trout, Freeman, Goldschmidt, Harper, and Judge.
For this season, the leaders are Ohtani, Freeman, Judge, Raleigh, and Guerrero, with the caveat that this is an offensive statistic only, so players like PCA who are known for defense will not do as well comparatively speaking. Since Freeman and Guerrero are not in the top 10 in MLB in WAR you could argue that they are the most clutch, comparatively speaking
Schwarber.
"Similarly, teammate Aaron Boone had a 1.58 ratio while driving in an improbable 141 runs."
It was Aaron's brother Bret who played with Ichiro on the 2001 Mariners.
Thanks.
Unfortunately for the Cubs, Crow-Armstrong's slump has overlapped almost completely with the slump of the player generally believed to be the best Cub before the season began, Kyle Tucker. Both have hit in the .160s during August, and both have experienced a pronounced power outage for about a month.
Like Mr. Cicotte, I believe that it was Bret and not Aaron who had the big power and production season which you mention.
Tucker finished 5th in ALMVP voting two years ago and has made the All-Star team the last four seasons but as it stands the second-best Cub is Nico Hoerner, who has never made an All-Star team nor received an MVP vote
Hitting wins to loss ratio. Elegant. Bill James is envious. Sailermetrics.
Brewers Manager Pat Murphy is MVP
The Cubs hired the Brewers' previous manager Craig Counsell a way for a ton of money because the Brewers seemed to over-perform their talent.
So, the Brewers are doing great this season with basically no stars (one ex-star in Christian Yellich).
I'd like to offer an insightful comment, but I don't think I'm qualified. My interest in the big professional league sports drastically tailed off after the Cubs won in 2016, and then the leagues starting embracing woke-mania. Now I just follow pro golf.
Its ok though because the Cubs completed my Chicago sports fan life dream (since I grew up near the Windy City). The Bears won the 1986 Super Bowl with that tremendous defense (and just enough offense managed by Jim McMahon and a past-his-prime Walter Payton). Jordan and the Bulls dominated the 90's. The White Sox finally broke through and won the WS in 2005 with that amazing performance by the starting rotation in the playoffs and WS. Then the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup three times in the 2010's. Now that I live near Baltimore, all my friends are Orioles homers, so I vaguely pay some attention to that team. Guess they significantly underperformed this season, based on last year's success and Spring expectations.
That the Bears only won one Super Bowl in that 84-91 run is quite disappointing. Yes they lost to the eventual Super Bowl champions in the playoffs four times (84 49ers, 87 Redskins, 88 49ers, 90 Giants) but the middle two games were at home which means you could argue they should have won the Super Bowl those years as well
The Redskins had their number. 2 huge wins in Chicago. Arguably the Redskins toughest win ever. In 1987 which led to SB 22 as you said. The other was beating a good team but an ineffective Doug Flutie the year before.
Everyone was hoping for a Giants/Bears showdown in the NFC championship game as they didn't play that season and the Redskins spoiled it. Maybe Gibbs was a better coach than Ditka
Maybe? 3 super bowls w average qbs. Highest win %. Legend.
I would say Theismann was above average but to win three SB with three different QB is impressive. While Gibbs had a WinPct of .621 this is not the highest of even his contemporaries; Shula's was .676 although Gibbs bested him in SB17
Yes, agreed. I considered Theismann when I said decent. He was definitely above average. He was actually really really good for three years. I think Gibbs was really hurt when he came back that hurt his winning percentage because he retired the first time with the best winning percentage ever.
> The White Sox finally broke through and won the WS in 2005 with that amazing performance by the starting rotation in the playoffs and WS
I'm sure this is common knowledge at this point but the future Pope Leo attended this World Series
That's not unreasonable: OK, all my hometown teams have now won championships, so I'm done wasting time on sports rooting.
As a sports fan, I had a 16-year period where I saw my favorite teams (Giants, Yankees, Devils) win 11 titles. Therefore their recent droughts haven't bothered me. However, where I live we have multiple teams in each sport to choose from and if one is a fan of the other 6 they have won no titles in the last 30 years. Both basketball teams are working on 50-year droughts at this point
> For example, Ichiro Suzuki came over from Japan in 2001 and won the MVP and Rookie of the Year awards as the Seattle Mariners went a record 116-46. His ratio was 1.77. Similarly, teammate Aaron Boone had a 1.58 ratio while driving in an improbable 141 runs.
That would be Aaron's older brother Bret
Three comments on your May 18 post:
• Because of the ubiquity of reruns, Ashley Crow is probably most recognizable due to her role as Debra's sister on Everybody Loves Raymond, although later on she had a recurring role on Heroes. However, she was also the mom in Little Big League, a movie in which a 12-year-old boy inherits the Minnesota Twins and names himself manager with Timothy Busfield playing first base. Yes, really. Anyway for her to play a baseball mom then become an actual baseball mom is pretty remarkable.
• In your list of NFL players who became actors you mention Bernie Williams, but you probably meant Bernie Casey
• In a 1995* episode of The Simpsons they are making fun of the CableACE awards by giving the Most Promising New Series award to Reruns of Starsky & Hutch. They had the son of the guy who played Huggy Bear accept the award, of course not knowing that the actual son of the guy who played Huggy Bear was a 15-year-old freshman at Notre Dame High School and would later play seven seasons for the Oakland Raiders. The son's wife was the coach of LSU and led them to multiple Sweet 16's
* https://youtu.be/8koS9dBfk3w
Bernie Williams was a really good baseball player who became a really good Latin jazz musician. That's remarkable.
If one believes in WAR, 37.5 percent of PCA's value comes from his defense, which unless you are Steve Sax or Chuck Knoblauch does not tend to slump. I think the writers are looking for an excuse to not give MVP to Shohei and Judge every year, so if they can plausibly give it to PCA and Big Dumper, they will
Ohtani makes 700 million over 10 years. PCA makes 770k this year. 5.9 WAR to 5.5.
What bothers me about the OPS ratio is that it is technically endogenous i.e in winning games your star players will, on average, be doing better than the games you lose. Fo example, assume WAR accurately calculates how good players are. Why might two players with high WAR have different OPS. The could happen if the teammates of player 1 are significantly more mediocre than the teammates of player 2. In this case Team 2 will have a much easier time winning a game when the star is having an off night since other players are more likely to step up. The players for Team 1 are much less likely to step up when their star does poorly..
An example of this might be Ohtani's scores being similar in wins and losses. The Dodgers have a lot of good players so even if Ohtani is having a bad night they are only a bit less likely to win.
Steve, from the 15 sad comments, one should begin to consider that Americans have given up on baseball in the 21st century. Even in August, ESPN and most sports media are covering pointless pre-season NFL games more than Major League baseball.
Sure.
But I like baseball, so I'm going to indulge myself.
That's a lot of words about rounders.
The real question is about the Vuelta that begins on Saturday.
Will Jonas win? Almeida? Ayuso? Matteo? Sepp?
Almeida and Ayuso are on the same time but they are famously incapable of cooperating. Jonas, Matteo, and Sepp are on the same team and they cooperate fine but there was a funny/crazy/tragic situation in the Vuelta 2023 that led to Sepp winning by mistake, ahead of Jonas and Primož. The Jumbo-Visma team did win the entire podium, though, which is unheard of in professional cycling... and they won not just the Vuelta that year but also the Giro and the Tour, which is also unheard of.
I'd suggest a team's W/L rec with and without the (position) player in the lineup is an excellent rule of thumb in MVP voting. (It is a broader form of the "did the player's team make the playoffs?") Few commonly used stats show second order effects like what happens to players before and after you in the lineup. Third order social effects - clubhouse manner, etc. - are probably very consequential but what isn't measured isn't managed, especially by new school quant managers.
Or to suggest a tweak to your proposal, considerably more mathematically complex, but a cousin of mine: how often did a player's OPS in a win marginally contribute to that win? Two home runs in a game when every starter gets a hit in a 12-1 win at Colorado is less important than 2-1 at Milwaukee...Enhanced Game Winning RBI (EGWRBI) sponsored by AWS?
Baseball Reference calculates the change in win probability after every plate appearance, then aggregates them. The career leaders are Bonds, Ruth, Williams, Mays, and Aaron, and the current active leaders are Trout, Freeman, Goldschmidt, Harper, and Judge.
For this season, the leaders are Ohtani, Freeman, Judge, Raleigh, and Guerrero, with the caveat that this is an offensive statistic only, so players like PCA who are known for defense will not do as well comparatively speaking. Since Freeman and Guerrero are not in the top 10 in MLB in WAR you could argue that they are the most clutch, comparatively speaking
Most players who get to be stars in the majors seem to have already largely overcome a bad tendency to choke in big moments.
And few hitters who are stars in the majors try a lot harder in big moments.