Todd Burford - Just looking back at a couple players:

 

How would you guys compare Rogers Hornsby vs. Honus Wagner?  I was of a mind to say that Wagner was the better player but looking over the stats - even the adjusted ones - Hornsby seems to come out ahead.  And how would you factor in the fact that Wagner is pretty much looked at as a fantastic fielder and very good teammate and Hornsby had trouble with an average pop-up and was considered a jerk?

 

Any thoughts?

 

 

Keith Glab - When comparing historical players from different eras, I tend to look at batting runs before anything else.  Hornsby is eighth all-time with 892, while Wagner ranks 16th at 651.  That does not tell the whole story, of course.  There are three other second baseman with over 500 career BR besides Hornsby, whereas the next three SS behind Wagner are Vaughan (361), A-Rod (353 thru 2004), and Banks (262, if you even consider him a SS).  It's simply a lot easier for 2B to generate offense than it is for SS.

 

We also have to factor in Wagner's 723 career SB, which is difficult since we have virtually no idea what his success rate was.  He did score a run over 38% of the time when he reached base, which is spectacular for his era, and indicative that he wasn't thrown out on the bases too often.  Hornsby, on the other hand, got caught stealing more often than he was successful, costing his teams dozens of runs over the course of his career.  

 

Defensively, Wagner is one of the best ever, looking at both statistics and anecdotes.  Hornsby was below average, but ultimately not as bad as people make him out to be.  He actually played SS for about 20% of his career games, and always had his F%, DP%, and assist totals right around the league's average. 

 

As far as other intangibles go, we know that Hornsby was a jerk, but until someone does a study on how teams with jerks win fewer games, I'm not prepared to enter that into my analysis (the 72-74 A's did alright with a team full of jerks).

 

Speaking for myself, the fact that Hornsby's career offensive value offensively ranks right around guys like Willie Mays and Stan Musial, combined with the fact that he played in the middle infield, and that he had probably the most dominant six-year stretch ever from 1920-1926, causes me to rank him as the fourth greatest player of all-time, just ahead of Williams and Wagner.

 

Todd - First I want to ask about the Batting Runs page you sent me and one of the equations used on the page:

 

Offensive Runs

.3*SB -.52*CS - .02K

 

In this equation is the .02K not supposed to be .2K?  It seems to me that .02K would essentially be negligible using these numbers.   

 

Keith - The -.02 for a K means that it is .02 runs worse than a regular out.  The actual value of the K would be -.26 minus .02, or -.28.  It does seem like a negligible difference, but Harry Heilmann's career BR drops by only 11 runs when you factor in the K's, while Reggie Jackson's drops by 52.  One thing to keep in mind for this analysis, however, is that these strikeouts are not era-adjusted; it was a lot easier to avoid strikeouts in the 20's than it was in the 70's.

 

Todd - Back to the original topic.

 

While Hornsby did have a Herculean 6 year run and several good years around that, Wagner had to have one of the most consistently good/great careers I can find.  What difference, if any do you put on career numbers vs. 1, 3, 10 year stretches?  In the batting runs equation HR are given a higher value than 2B and 3B.  I believe Wagner should receive some credit for playing in the dead ball era as some of the 2B and 3B would have been HR in Hornsby's day.  Also, I believe that Wagner should get some credit for playing a more difficult position, at a higher level than Hornsby.

 

I have always rated Wagner as a better player than Hornsby - and not by a hair but a step - but from what I have been reading on your site I am reevaluating and trying to see where I end up.  Thanks for all your help.

 

Keith - The great thing about the Batting Runs stat is that it is adjusted for park and era.  Thus Wagner does not suffer adversely from playing in the dead ball era.  As he never led his league in homers during the dead ball era, it's hard to imagine him doing it in the 20's. 

 

The other thing I really like about batting runs is that a player's career batting runs factor in both dominance and longevity automatically (by virtue of negative batting run possibilities).  Counting stats like Runs Created favor players who may have hung around a bit too long without really helping their team (Brett, Yaz), whereas rate stats like OPS or EQA favor flameouts (Kiner, Belle).

 

I used the dominance stretch as an argument primarily because I know other analysts consider dominant stretches a prerequisite for greatness.  I disagree.   Teams who score the most runs generally do so by having a strong lineup top to bottom rather than having three superstars in the middle.  In which case, it's more advantageous for a team to have a player who's good for 20 years (Al Kaline) than one who's great for 10 and so-so for 10 (Yastrzemski).  But that's a personal bias, and I try not to factor it in either way when evaluating a player's career.

 

Defense is the big issue.  How much credit do we give Wagner for his defensive value?  As I alluded to earlier, Wagner is further ahead of the next best SS than Hornsby is of the next best 2B.  However, it's worth noting that Wagner only played about 70% of his career at SS, and bears repeating that Hornsby began his career as a SS.  Since we don't have real good statistics for measuring the defensive value of middle infielders prior to 2003, I wonder whether some of the anecdotal evidence we have about their respective defensive capabilities is somewhat skewed by the fact that Wagner was well-liked and Hornsby pissed off everyone who met him.

 

And that, I think, is the bottom line.  I can look at all kinds of batting statistics and see roughly how far Hornsby finishes ahead of Wagner in that regard.  As to how much better of a fielder Wagner was, I'm just not sure, and I'll tend to lean towards the quantifiable data when ranking players.

 

That said, I do not hold it against anyone who ranks Wagner just ahead of Hornsby.  In fact, I applaud Bill James for boldly ranking him as the second best player of all time.  What I have an issue with is his ranking Honus 20 spots ahead of Rogers.  I'm guessing that's more than the 'step ahead' you mentioned.

 

Todd - You state that the 'the Batting Runs stat is that it is adjusted for park and era.'  How is this done?  Is it done through the inning run expectancy?  Other than that I cannot see how this would be achieved.

 

Keith - To era adjust BR, you calculate the league's linear weight value and set it equal to zero.  Thus a player who collects 14 linear weights runs above the league's average linear weights runs would be credited with 14 Batting Runs.

 

(Surprisingly, the weights for each event remain constant over time except for the value of an out, and the change there is marginal.  A hitter's era does not occur because a home run is suddenly worth more, but rather because there are simply more of them).

 

For park adjustments, you basically express the number of total runs scored in a team's home games over the number of total runs scored in a team's road games as a ratio, and use it to percentage-adjust stats like OPS or BR accordingly.

 

Hornsby played in one of the greatest hitter's eras ever, but played half of his games in a very pitcher-friendly stadium (Sportsman's Park).  Wagner played in one of the greatest pitcher's eras ever.  For most of his career, he played in a hitter-friendly stadium (Exposition Park), but Pittsburgh switched to Forbes Field, a pitcher's park, towards the end of his career.

 

If you don't agree with this methodology, here are their raw linear weights totals, pre-park & era adjustment:

 

Hornsby - 925

Wagner - 591      

 

This is excluding K, SB, and CS for both due to limited statistics for Wagner.  All of Honus' SB certainly add to his value... I'm just not sure by how much.