It's Mike Trout and It's Not That Close

For the fourth consecutive year -- indeed, for the only four years of his career -- Mike Trout will finish in the top two in the MVP race. Also for the fourth time, he should finish first, ahead of a star with bigger traditional numbers. And for the third time, he might finish second.

Josh Donaldson has produced a monster season for the Blue Jays, hitting .298 with 41 homers and a league-leading 123 RBI. He's scored a league-pacing 122 runs too. His OBP-SLG of .373/.571 places him second in the AL in OPS.

Behind Mike Trout, whose .299-41-90 with 104 runs scored and a .400-.588 OBP-SLG gives him 44 points more of OPS.

Here's the comparison, with league-leading numbers in bold.
Trout            .299-41-90   104R .402/.590/.992 176 OPS+ .353 TAv
Donaldson  .297-41-123 122R .370/.569/.939 155 OPS+ .323 TAv

In other words, Donaldson leads in team events because he bats in the middle of that historically-potent Blue Jays lineup. Trout leads in measures of individual excellence.

Both are superb base runners who have not applied that to base stealing. Donaldson has swiped all six of his attempts. Trout, once a 40-steal guy, is just 11 of 18. That's a ding against Trout.

Both light up the web gems highlight reel. Donaldson is generally considered even more special at his position than Trout is at his, but Trout plays the more critical CF to Donaldson's hot corner.

Factoring in their ballparks and strength of opposing pitchers, Trout has produced 8.7 offensive wins for his team, 13% more than Donaldson's 7.7, according to Baseball Reference. Baseball Prospectus has the gap even wider, and rates Trout the better fielder too.

Sentiment had shifted toward Donaldson as he and Toronto heated up while Trout and the Of Anaheims cooled in August. But the tables turned some in September/October as Trout humped it up and his team hung in the playoff race until the last day. Of course, the performance of his teammates should be of no consequence to a player's MVP candidacy: it's not up to him whether the nine wins he adds are wins 71-79 or wins 87-95.

So a voter could cast his vote for Josh Donaldson for 2015 AL MVP and that would be a perfectly reasonable choice. No one could argue that Donaldson didn't deserve it for the quantum leap he's taken this year following his shocking trade from Oakland. It's just that Trout is clearly the better candidate, not by a significant margin, but by enough that everyone ought to recognize it.

OPS Is Dead; Long Live TAv!

Remember when those statistics geeks dragged their pencil necks out of the ooze of their mothers' basements and dropped their complicated nerd numbers on us, numbers like OPS and WAR? They made unreasonable demands on us, like understanding obtuse concepts: "getting on base is good" and "hitting for power is more than home runs."

And then, just when we picked up the spin on those knuckleballs they were throwing us, they began firing heat, telling us OPS wasn't the end-all. No, it turns out we could gloat that they were wrong all along, those Moneyball pocket protectors. We know that science should make a pronouncement and that should be The Truth forever, without any revisions or further inquiry. So now when they decide that wOBA is a more useful statistic, they're just admitting they were wrong.

So now we have wOBA, weighted on base average, which "combines all the different aspects of hitting into one metric, weighting each of them in proportion to their actual run value. While batting average, on-base percentage, and slugging percentage fall short in accuracy and scope, wOBA measures and captures offensive value more accurately and comprehensively," according to Fangraphs.

OPS values slugging as equal to on base percentage, when in fact getting on base safely is nearly twice as important to a team's ability to score runs as slugging is. That's why OPS always over-rated the big lugs who walk, strikeout and go yard and under-rated skeeters who Baltimore-chop their way aboard, steal second and score on a sac fly.

 wOBA is tuned to the pitch of average on-base percentage, or roughly .320. So if you see that Yan Gomes posted a wOBA of .340 last year, you know that the Indians' catcher was an above-average hitter. (He's also a quality backstop worth nearly five wins for the Tribe last year. He's an under-appreciated ballplayer.) Ordinary fans can't calculate wOBA because the formula is complicated and requires facility with the cosmic mysteries of multiplication and division.

For 2015, wOBA will be one of our go-to statistics for hitters. So will TAv, or True Average,  a similar measurement scaled to batting average (where average is .260) that accounts for park factors and league quality, but not for baserunning. It is also beyond the derivation powers of ordinary humans without green eyeshades and solved Rubic's cube puzzles. Potato tomahto.

Sometimes we want total value wrapped up in a single package with a nice ribbon. WAR, wins above replacement, wins the Oscar for best performance in The Theory of Everything, flawed though its performance is. WAR includes a defensive component, which still inspires chuckling, but does compare players to others at their position. An average defender in right field with a .340 wOBA is not nearly as valuable as an average defender with a .340 wOBA behind the plate.

WAR is becoming more popular, and not just because the deformed brains of Boko Haram and Daesh are on rampages that inspire war in their corners of the world. WAR provides one-stop shopping for a player's tangible value to his team in games won, taking into account offense and defense, park factors, league averages and replacement value. And it's becoming ubiquitous, which hikes its value as a statistic, as long as it's consumed with a grain of salt even by those with high blood pressure.

Look for wOBA, TAv and WAr in this space to replace OPS and OPS+, which once upon a time replaced batting average, home runs and RBIs. It's called "learning." Don't tell Boko Haram.

Carlos Delgado Deserves This Homage

He slammed 473 home runs and knocked in 1512 runs in his illustrious career. He posted a lifetime OPS of .929, 38% above average. He earned MVP votes seven times. He was beloved by teammates and above steroid reproach. And even in his final season, bedeviled by hip injuries, he continued his on base and slugging ways, with a .914 OPS.

And yet Carlos Delgado fell like a stone from the Hall of Fame ballot after one appearance.

Delgado was a spectacular hitter. He took walks and pounded mistakes, cracking 38 or more homers seven times and knocking home 100+ runs nine times. In 2000, at age 28, he batted .344, with 57 doubles, 41 homers and 102 walks, and posted an 1.134 OPS, 81% better than average, even in the big bat era.

Delgado lifted his teammates; just ask them. When fellow Blue Jay Shawn Green signed a big free agent deal with the Dodgers, he credited Delgado for his success.

Despite the injuries, Delgado continued slugging and served as an eminence grise with the Mets during their 2006 playoff run, the only one of his career. He left the game with 500 homers in sight but his dignity intact. He remains the Blue Jays' career leader in home runs, RBIs, doubles, walks, runs scored and OPS. ESPN's Jayson Stark calls him "the best player in history to get booted off the Hall of Fame ballot after his first year."

Carlos Delgado wasn't a Hall of Famer. History is littered with immobile sluggers at first base; Delgado posted the 35th most WAR among players at his position. The logjam on the ballot, combined with a paucity of post-season heroics, further conspired against him. But Carlos Delgado deserves to be remembered for his near-great career.

Best & Worst New Metrics Part III: OPS

The days of explaining why batting average, home runs and RBIs don't adequately capture an everyday player's performance are long gone. Even the retrogrades who cling tenaciously to the old numbers recognize in their hearts why on-base percentage and slugging percentage are more comprehensive and why RBIs don't tell a useful story.

Adding on base and slugging gave us OPS, the shorthand statistic of choice to seamheads in the seamheady early days of the sabremetric movement. But analysts cannot live by OPS alone; indeed, OPS and its close relations, like OPS+, now long in the tooth, have become something of an anachronism, rarely used to make anything but the crudest point. 

The reason is simple: not all OPS is equal. Seamheads have long known that OBP is more important than slugging, about 20% more when talking about run creation. So simply adding the two numbers devalues on-base percentage.

OPS is not park-adjusted, position-adjusted or competition-adjusted. The narrative it creates doesn't describe whether a batter hits same-handed pitchers or has to be platooned. It's also largely irrelevant when discussing leadoff hitters, whose OBP is invaluable and whose slugging is not very valuable at all.

OPS was good to the analysis community in its prime, but has lost a step and is now little more than a veteran presence off the bench, backing up starters TAv, WAR/WARP and their ilk. We thank OPS for its contributions, particularly for introducing fans to better ways to measure players. and wish it the best of luck in its future endeavors.

The Amazing Career of a Horrible Hitter

In 18 Major League seasons he cracked 20 home runs, a quarter of them in 1974, when he slugged .300. 

(He didn't bat .300; he had a slugging percentage of .300.)

His career totals of .228/.300/.280 are inflated by a .287/.351/.345 season in his prime. In other words, the only thing keeping him from being a pitcher was his inability to pitch.

He made the All-Star team in 1976, when he actually batted league average. He only came close to average two other times and retired with an OPS 32% below middling.

Sliding into outs in 31% of his 242 steal attempts further degraded his value. 

Yet. . . .

His slick fielding at shortstop earned the Orioles 40 wins over his career, roughly triple his offensive value. He is remembered as a key cog in a powerhouse franchise that won four pennants. His total career value -- 55 wins -- is greater than Davey Concepcion's, a contemporary named to eight All-Star berths.

It's hard to find as truly awful a hitter as Mark Belanger who nonetheless managed to start 2000 games and play an important role on a terrific team. Few others position players lacking the ability to hit for average or power, run fast or walk often have ever authored such a respectable resume.

We can thank Earl Weaver for recognizing the value of defense and writing Belanger's name on the lineup card 150 times a season. Weaver, always an innovator, knew that Jim Palmer, Dave McNally and other pitching stars who passed through the Baltimore rotation owed some of their success to the reliable dirt-scooper at short. We can also thank the likes of Boog Powell, Frank and Brooks Robinson, Paul Blair and Don Buford for making a power contribution from their shortstop unnecessary.

But mostly it's worth remembering fondly how a skinny intellectual from Pittsfield, MA could turn one skill - often overlooked -- into a career rated 508th best ever by Baseball-Reference.

Mark Belanger would have turned 69 next week, but he died of cancer 14 years ago from a lifelong addiction to sucking on poison sticks. He leaves behind many happy Baltimore baseball fans and the memory of an accomplished career, despite the absence of a single offensive skill.

WAR on Fox! WAR on Fox!

Mark down this date: April 6, 2013.

That's the date that Fox's baseball coverage included discussions of OPS and WAR. Hallelujah!

Joe Buck introduced both notions without snark or derision. He explained the acronyms (On-base Plus Slugging and Wins Against Replacement) and discussed how they are calculated.

In the first discussion, Buck demurred a bit, noting that OPS is hard to calculate. But Fox inserted Ken Rosenthal into the discussion to explain that sabermetricans and front offices prefer OPS to batting average and home runs. Fox may have been setting the stage for using OBP stats in the future by having Rosenthal aver that on base percentage is more meaningful than batting average.

This is a true advance. But Fox wasn't done.

With Miguel Cabrera at the plate, Buck introduced the viewer to WAR. He explained how -- and why! -- Triple Crown winner Miguel Cabrera earned just the fourth highest WAR in MLB last year. 

Supported by a Fox graphic listing the top four WARriors in 2012, Buck explained how Cabrera would fare less well because he's only an offensive force. He noted that Mike Trout, first by far on that list with nearly 11 wins against replacement, runs the bases and plays defense.

It's truly a watershed when a major TV network intransigent in its opposition to advanced metrics finally acknowledges that there is a better alternative to batting average and home runs. Kudos to Fox for accepting what has been proven and helping educate average fans.

The next giant leap will occur when Rosenthal explains on air to Buck the other key element of WAR. The three players ahead of Cabrera on the WAR list are center fielder Trout, second baseman Robinson Cano and catcher Buster Posey. Each plays a more difficult position and is being compared to weaker hitters than a third baseman, if that's what you want to call Cabrera.

And the battle will finally be won when they both explain it to the satisfaction of Tim McCarver.

554 Homers; No Integrity

It appears clear that even if Roger Clemens is acquitted of lying to Congress about steroid use, he will face a Sisyphean struggle to make the Hall of Fame. Perhaps one of the 10 greatest pitchers of all time, Clemens' conduct is considered so detrimental to baseball that he should be barred from immortality.

I think Clemens is a jerk -- I've always thought that -- a liar, a philanderer and a cheater. But he was still one of the best pitchers ever.

Now contrast him, and the others whose entry to the Hall appear blocked -- Mark McGwire, Sammy Sosa, Barry Bonds, Rafael Palmeiro -- and compare them to a man whose Hall pass is already stamped: Manny Ramirez.

Ramirez makes Roger Clemens look like Prince Charles. He is a juvenile, narcisistic twit. Is there a sin in baseball worse than literally quitting on your team? On two different teams? Can a player be called "great" when, in the prime of his career, two different teams were willing to give him away? For all his considerable boorishness, Barry Bonds was never more trouble to the Giants than he was worth. 

Let's review the record.  In 2003, Ramirez was benched for a game after he was found faking illness that had put him on the shelf for a week. After the 2005 season, he demanded a trade and threatened to boycott spring training if his demand wasn't met. The Red Sox, only too happy to oblige, couldn't find a taker for his massive contract. 

In 2008, Ramirez came to blows with Red Sox personnel twice -- once with teammate Kevin Youklis and another with traveling secretary Jack McCormick, whom Ramirez shoved to the ground. Later, he sat out a crucial series with the Yankees, claiming a sore knee, though MRI exams he was forced to get showed no damage. In the subsequent series, he failed to run out grounders or hustle after flies in the field. At one point, he went to the plate and refused to swing the bat, striking out on three pitches. In my line of work, and yours too, that's grounds for instant dismissal. 

But wait, there's more. Last year, immediately after signing a $45 million, two-year contract, Ramirez turned the key on a brand new 50-game suspension for using a steroid companion drug. Following that, the NY Times reported that he was one of the 104 players who tested positive for steroid use. Many writers vow they will not elect Alex Rodriguez to the Hall for that reason, but Ramirez, who continues to lie about his involvement, suffers no such stain.

This year, apparently bored with the Dodgers' struggles, Ramirez has found a home on the disabled list. Upon his return, with rumors swirling of a trade, he got himself ejected after taking one pitch, the baseball equivalent of suicide by cop.

Manny Ramirez, at .313/.411/.589, with 554 home runs and 12 seasons of .950+ OPS is unquestionably a giant among hitters. But his brain, his heart, his integrity and his pride could fit in a sesame seed with enough room left over for two gnats to polka. The idea of Ramirez making a victory speech in Cooperstown, while Mark McGwire is banned, disgusts me.

Didn't we long ago agree that idiots, drunks, creeps and thieves could still earn enshrinement with their play, as long as they didn't throw games? It seems to me that Manny Ramirez's loafing, sandbagging and mid-game quitting is a lot closer to throwing a game than anything Barry Bonds ever did.

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You're Never Alone With A Schizophrenic Batter

Would you like this defensively solid left-fielder batting in a key game for your team:

.320/.349/.563, 24 HR 74 RBI in 100 games? 

Not just yes, but hell yes, right? That's Rockie Carlos Gonzalez.

So you write Gonzalez's name in the lineup, and you get this -- .262/.279/.385, 10 HR 54 RBI, 10BB, 130K. What happened?

First, let's recognize how utterly abysmal that is. A .279 OBP is cactus enema bad, and the result in this case of a player who walks less than Stephen Hawking. It's 48 points worse than Bud Harrelson's embarrassing lifetime mark. It's 15 points lower than Mike Hampton's lifetime OBP.

Yes, that's the pitcher Mike Hampton.

How did an All-Star caliber outfielder morph into an over-matched Double-A wind machine? Simple: The Rockies are playing a road game.

Carlos Gonzalez is a terror at Coors -- .375/.414/.730, 38 HR 94 RBI, 28BB 68 K. (I've doubled his home and away counting stats so you can compare them to his overall performance.) That's Mark McGwire on andro. But for some reason, Cargo can't hit anywhere else. This is good information if you're his manager. You'd probably want to make sure he's in the lineup in Denver, but you might want to give him a breather now and then elsewhere.

It also casts a shadow on his overall performance for the year, as documented at the top of this post. It raises the question of whether he's just a thin-air artifact who's not really the .320-with-power hitter his overall numbers suggest.

In an effort to spare a deceased horse further injury, I won't detail how Charlie Manuel gets the same raw deal when he expects to send his .281/.373/.578 first baseman to the plate and this shows up -- .231/313/.453 because the pitcher is right-brained and Ryan Howard turns into Eddie Gaedel when facing lefties. Suffice to say that it's very hard to make convincing MVP arguments for a guy who can be so easily neutralized.

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The Incredible Shrinking Outfielder

In 1999, I dabbled in an AL-only Rotisserie baseball team. During the draft, my partner and I agreed that the best values would leverage positional scarcity, not pure performance. We set our sights on drafting one of the three transcendent shortstops (ARod, Nomar, Jeter), the only plus-hitting catcher (Pudge), a couple of valuable second-basemen and a key DH asset.

 

Selecting at the end of a snake draft, we nabbed Nomar and Pudge with our first two picks, much to the consternation of our opponents, who were googly-eyes over big boppers like Carlos Delgado and Ken Griffey, Jr. We shocked the crowd again in the next two rounds, plucking Robby Alomar and Edgar Martinez from among a coterie of slugging first basemen and corner outfielders.

 

Not until the 9th round did we finally get around to staffing first. David Segui hit .305 with 19 dingers and 84 RBIs the year prior, certainly not the equal of guys like Mo Vaughn, but within shouting distance. We captured an entire infield of all-stars in exchange for the 20 homers and 40 RBI lost at first base. (We had the best offense in the league, a weak pitching staff and finished second overall.)

 

What made that strategy work was a pile of outfield (and first base, but that’s not so much the point here) bodies in MLB that year. Consider some of the outfield names of the day: Juan Gonzalez, Ken Griffey, Jr., Manny Ramirez, Bernie Williams, Albert Belle, Paul O’Neill, Tim Salmon, Shawn Green, Sammy Sosa, Moises Alou, Greg Vaughn, Barry Bonds, Vlad Guerrero, Tony Gwynn, Larry Walker. Every one of them had a Hall of Fame year in 1998. The best hitters of the day patrolled the distances or made the stretch on 6-4-3s.

 

Now, name the best outfielder in baseball today.

 

Go ahead. I’ll wait.

  

(Whistles Jeopardy theme...)

 

Stuck on Ryan Braun? Jeff Kemp? Grady Sizemore? The remnants of Ichiro perhaps?

 

A list of the top 10 hitters by OPS last year includes just two deep-fly catchers -- Joey Votto and Derrek Lee. You have to reach down to #6 on the list in the AL today to find an outfielder – Alex Rios of Chicago. Not exactly Sammy Sosa. In the NL, Andre Ethier and Colby Rasmus are 1-2 in OPS. Today. Check back in September. Neither has this kind of pedigree. (To be fair, they may turn out to. Rasmus is a sophomore; Ethier has a four-year record of accomplishment, though this would represent a quantum leap.)

That's heads; tails is where all the batsmen have gone. Today, shake a tree and a middle infielder with a good stick will fall out. Cano, Zobrist, Mauer, McCann, Jeter, Posada, Furcal, Escobar, Tulowitzki, Uggla, Utley, Pedroia, and Rollins jump to mind. Pivotmen and backstops, all. There are no 5’8” 160-pound slapsters filling the infield positions anymore. If Adonis can handle the position defensively, his team will gladly leave him at short.

Whether it's a paradigm shift or just a phase we're going through, it's one I don't think baseball has ever seen before. Put me in coach! I want to play centerfield!
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Missing the Bat With Pat

You can crunch the numbers all you like, but personnel decisions involve persons.  Statheads need to keep that in mind when asserting their certitudes about the future performance of players in the league. It's something Pat Burrell reminded me of this weekend when he collected his walking papers from the Tampa Bay Rays.

Two years ago, I blasted the Phils for committing a $30 million dowry to 36-year-old Raul Ibanez for three years of declining offensive value and already-addled defense. Philadelphia, I noted, already had an immobile slugger in left field in 31-year-old Burrell, who could have been inked to the two-year, $16 million deal he got from Tampa Bay.

I had my reasons. Ibanez was five years older, had begun slowing down in the field and seemed to stand out in Seattle mostly because he was the only non-Ichiro hitter on the roster. He even lacked Burrell's stick in their contract year; Burrell, .875 OPS to Ibanez, .837. Finally, paying a guy eight figures for his age-39 year was almost certainly folly.

How'd that turn out? Burrell was spectacular in the field for Tampa -- from the DH position. Other than that, the Rays got less support from Burrell than from their jock straps. After setting the bar at ground level last year -- .682 OPS while missing 40 games due to injury -- Burrell began 2010 by crawling beneath it. The notoriously frugal Rays found it useful to cut him even though it meant eating $9 million.

Ibanez? He slugged 34 HR last season, made the All-Star team, posted an .899 OPS, shored up his glove work and helped the Phils repeat as NL champs.

How could I be so wrong? 

First, it's worth pointing out that it wasn't quite so cut and dried even by the numbers. Burrell had been up and down for the Phils. The weaker league and hitters' park served as stat inflator during those years. So he was probably worse than he appeared. Ibanez moved in the opposite direction: from a pitcher's park in the tougher league to Citizens Bank Launching Pad. He could reasonably be expected to improve a bit, or given his age, keep his production steady.

Nonetheless, could anyone have predicted Ibanez's breakout and Burrell's breakdown? Well, apparently Philly management knew something about Burrell that led them to jettison him. His attitude, his work ethic, his injury history, his swing, something -- something the stats can't tell you. The Phillies looked at Pat Burrell and said to themselves, "we'd better get someone else in here, even if it costs us." And they were right.

In retrospect, Burrell wasn't the answer, but I'll stick by my assertion that three years of Ibanez isn't either. The Phils could have signed Adam Dunn and his .928 OPS for $16 million without the specter of a graybeard patrolling the outfield. (On the other hand, Dunn has all the defensive prowess of Lucy Van Pelt.) Last year's magic dust has worn off Ibanez; so far this season he's showing none of last year's pop. He's been a below-average hitter and fielder, and isn't likely to improve as he ages.

So let's say the Phils got one superb year, one palatable year and one forgettable year for their $30 million investment. Meanwhile, Pat Burrell delivered less than nothing for Tampa Bay's $16 million. Like choosing between John and Kate. Still, it shows that the numbers don't tell the whole story.

Lesson noted.

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Of Counsell

Not every player on even a championship team can be an All-Star. Winning teams need average players and role players who rarely attract attention but seem to accumulate rings.

One of those players is Craig Counsell, an unimposing, weak-hitting infielder who has changed uniforms six times in his career. You probably haven't thought about Counsell for years and weren't even sure he was still collecting a Major League paycheck.

He's not just collecting it -- for the Milwaukee Brewers these days -- he's earning it, despite a lifetime slugging percentage of .351. That's nearly Harrisonian, as in Bud. (Okay, no it's not. Buddy posted a lifetime SLG of .288., which is roughly what Chase Utley slugs with one arm. The point is that Counsell's 40 lifetime home runs in 15 seasons means he'd better have something else in his repertoire to impress the chicks.)

In 1440 lifetime games at second, short and third  -- he didn't really begin getting regular playing time until his seventh season in the bigs -- Counsell has hit a pedestrian .258/.345/.351 without flashing the blazing speed those kinds of numbers tend to require for usefulness. On the other hand, Counsell is an asset around the defensive horn, works the count and takes his walks, brings professionalism to the job everyday, rarely makes bonehead plays, accepts his role and offers his skipper multiple options every game. As a left-handed bat, Counsell even adds the platoon dimension to the manager's hand.

Moreover, while a .696 OPS won't get a left-fielder a major league job, it's actually about average for a middle-infielder. On top of that, Counsell is a few ticks above the middle with the glove, according to the various defensive metrics out there. Baseball Prospectus estimates that given the extra two wins he contributes to his team compared to a replacement-level player, Craig Counsell is worth a cool $8.5 million this year.

The thing to understand about average players who fill roles is that they are a huge improvement over the alternative. A team with an average hitter batting seventh, or backing up a star, is an awesome offensive force. Last year, in just 459 late appearances, Counsell added roughly 46 runs to the Brewers' performance compared to whoever would have been available to replace him.

Guys like Craig Counsell can't carry teams. You can live with him as your starting second baseman or shortstop for a full season if you must, but he's really an asset as part of a rotation, a back-up, a spot starter, an injury fill-in. He's not the reason the Marlins won the championship in '97 or the Diamonbacks in '01, but those teams couldn't have won if, instead of the Craig Counsells of the world, they'd have signed someone off the scrap heap. Keep that in mind next time your favorite team signs some middling player to share duty or provide relief. Those players can be mighty valuable.

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Vlad the Impaled

Watching the playoffs, the saddest thing to see -- after the seeming inevitability of another purchased World Championship for the Yankees -- is the dramatic decline of Vladimir Guerrero. Hitless in his first two games and having whiffed in his previous at-bat on a pitch half a light-year from the strike zone, Guerrero was the last guy the Angels wanted at the plate with the bases juiced and two down in the seventh inning of a tie Game 2.

Guerrero is a lesson in the importance of plate discipline. For 12 years, Vlad the Impaler made mincemeat of Major League pitching by swinging at everything in the same zip code as home plate. From his first full season in 1998 to 2007, Guerrero's lowest OPS was .943 despite Stevie Wonder's batting eye.

There is only way to bat .300 with power while swinging at everything but the pick-off move: possess mad skills. Vlad was so endowed. However...

Starting last year, his 33rd on Planet Earth, Guerrero's skills began to erode. His OPS the last two seasons slumped to .886 and .794, and he's failed to hit 30 home runs each of the last three years. His value, as compared to a replacement-level player at his position dropped from a high of seven wins, accomplished several times, to about one-and-a-half win in 2009.

To be fair, Vlad missed a third of the season this year. On the other hand, he DH'd almost exclusively. Counter-intuitively, the replacement level hitter at DH is actually weaker than at right-fielder.

Guerrero's problem is that he can no longer compensate for his miserable plate discipline with an uncanny ability to hit everything. Pitchers know they can make bad pitches, and as long as they're not hugging the plate, they can get him out.

That's what was on display when he batted against a suspect Joba Chamberlain in Game 2. In 45-degree temperatures, Joba had come into the game one batter earlier and issued a free pass to the previous batter. But Guerrero swung at all four pitches he saw -- two of them balls -- and struck out, leaving three runners aboard.

The prognosis for Vladimir Guerrero in 2010 is pretty poor. Time waits for no one, and it doesn't appear that he's learned anything about how to hit. It's a shame too, becuse he was on a Hall of Fame trajectory had he only improved on the one glaring weakness in his game.

Plus, he could have helped beat the Yankees.
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The Persistence of Memory

Last week I examined how Tim Raines' generalist abilities and shadow skills have doomed him -- perhaps unfairly -- in our esteem and in Hall of Fame voting.

Today the flip side: Jim Rice.

As with Raines, I make no claim as to whether Rice should be a HOFer. We certainly remember him as a fearsome slugger who dominated baseball offensively for the better part of 12 years. Four times in his career he batted over .300, slugged 39 or more home runs and drove in at least 114. He finished in the top five in MVP voting six times. At the time, we thought that was the definition of a great player.

Today, our lens is more finely focused. We realize the value of walks, of OBP over batting average, of defense, of context and of double plays (in the negative.) And all of those elements line up against Jim Rice.

Let's take them in order. Rice didn't walk. He earned 60 free passes just once in his career, so despite his .298 BA he had a non-HOF .352 OBP. He was never much of a fielder, despite the long-standing New England rationalization that he had a special knack for predicting Green Monster caroms. Myriad retrospective defensive statistics, about which I am admitedly dubious, all agree that Rice was a liability in left field.

Left field, of course, is where many of history's best hitters roamed, and against whom Rice must be measured. It is also the least important defensive position on the field (as opposed to the DH, who is not on the field defensively) because neither range nor an arm are particularly relevant. Rice's competition for the Hall, besides Raines, includes Musial, Bonds, Ted and Billy Williams, Simmons, Henderson, Shoeless Joe, Yaz, Stargell and Kiner.

Jim Rice also played in a hitter's park his whole career. Fenway increases offense by 8% versus today's MLB stadiums, and it was likely higher in Rice's day. Then, when you factor in the 315 twin killings he grounded into, it effectively drops his OBP to .339 and his slugging percentage below .500.

What you have, after all that, is a mighty hitter for sure, but one who doesn't avoid outs, has no speed (58 steals and 34 CS is a net negative) and hurts you defensively. Moreover, his talent ebbed quickly, with his last good year at age 33. Suddenly he's much less Hall-worthy.

For fun, I compared Rice to Raines. Note that Raines played most of his career in Montreal's concrete cavern.

Player	BA	OBP	SLG	OPS+	H	HR	RS	RBI	SB
Tim Raines	.294	.385	.425	123	2605	170	1571	980	808
Jim Rice	.298	.352	.502	128	2452	382	1249	1451	58

OPS+ is on-base plus slugging relative to the rest of the league. A 100 OPS+ is exactly average. At 128, Rice was 28% better than the average hitter.

You can decide for yourself whether Jim Rice deserves a bust in Cooperstown. It appears, given his near-miss last year, that he's headed in. It also appears that regardless, he is diminished by perspective, in much the way Tim Raines' stature is enhanced.