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Let me ask you a question.  You'll enjoy it more if you take 10 seconds, come up with a tentative answer, and then proceed before reading my own answer to it.

You know "The Double" by Edgar Martinez in 1995.  The one off Jack McDowell that drove in Joey Cora and Ken Griffey Jr. to put the Mariners in the ALCS.  The one that is memorialized in stainless steel at Safeco.  That double?

Does that double add any real value to Edgar's career, any inherent value to his contribution to the 1995 season, beyond his double on April 30th that came in a 10-1 loss to the White Sox?

In that situation against McDowell, Edgar had about a 10.7% chance* of getting an extra-base hit.  The Mariners' first baseman Tino Martinez had about a 10.5% chance.  Is that how we should view Edgar's double ... he had a 2-in-1000 better chance than Tino, and the dice fell in?

The question.  Does The Double count for more contribution in 1995 than the April 30th double?  I mean, beyond linear weights for game situation.  Should history acknowledge that Edgar was a hero that day?

If you just joined us, Edgar did a lot more than double in that 1995 ALDS.  He batted .571 (!!) for the series and slugged 1.000.  When the Mariners were behind 2-1 in games and 5-0 on the scoreboard, game Four, trust me on this one: it was over.  The feeling was sickening.

Edgar hit a 3-run home run to single-handedly put the M's back in the series. In the 8th inning, with the Mariners behind, Edgar hit a grand slam off super-closer John Wetteland to force game Five.

So Edgar batted .571 in that series, batted .571 WHEN .571 decided who won.  Should this be regarded as a special contribution to the 1995 season, or should we just take Edgar's overall stats and not credit him for when his hitting occured?

Hmmmmm...

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When Vladimir Kovacevic sat down to play Bobby Fischer at Rovinj-Zagreb 1970, Kovacevic (playing Black!) won a spectacular game based on a theoretical gamble.  After the game, Fischer was still the theoretically better player.  Did the game matter?  Chess history regards Kovacevic with more respect because of his victory over Fischer. Who cares?  Nothing changed as to their theoretical ratings.

You take this xFIP logic far enough, do we even still continue to play the games?

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Bill James Online said:

Bill, how willing would you be to agree with something like this? 1. Imagine two teams, a division-winning team with 101 wins and a non-postseason team with 100. It's reasonable to think the first team's accomplishment is more than 1% more "valuable," although reasonable people would also differ about how much more. 2. It might also be reasonable, in some contexts, to credit some part of that accomplishment's "bonus value" to the first team's individual players. 3. MVP voting is a context where this is reasonable at least sometimes.

Asked by: mvandermast

Answered: 11/17/2012

In a certain context, yes.    One of the things that makes Sandy Koufax singular is that Koufax had more impact on pennant races than any other pitcher of the 20th century.    Koufax went 25-5 with a 1.88 ERA in 1963, when the Dodgers won the pennant by six games, but the six games are an illusion because they opened it up in the last week of the season.  In 1965 Koufax went 26-8 with 382 strikeouts, and the Dodgers won the pennant by two games.   In 1966 Koufax went 27-9 with a 1-something ERA and 300-some strikeouts, and the Dodgers won the pennant by two games. 

You can look at it this way:  If, in any of those seasons, Koufax had been MERELY outstanding, the Dodgers probably wouldn't have won any of those pennants.    If Koufax had finished just 20-12 with 250 strikeouts and a 2.70 ERA, the Dodgers certainly would not have won in 1965 or 1966, and probably would not have won in 1963.    No other pitcher in the 20th century had the same impact on pennant races by his more-than-excellent performance. 

If there is a concept of "Wins Above Replacement", there could be a more sophisticated or later-developing concept called "Wins Above Excellence" or something.   Impact Wins.   Koufax' exceptionalism is based on his Impact Wins.  

There are also times when won-lost records of teams are misleading because teams are just mailing it in the last two-three weeks of the season.    We should note that the 2012 Trout/ Cabrera debate is not an example of this, in that both teams were still playing competitively essentially to the last out.

There are times when won-lost records are misleading because the schedules are not even.   A few years ago, when the AL East was fantastically strong, a team that finished 85-77 in the AL East was almost certainly more impressive than a team that finished 95-67 in the NL West.  

We can't attribute to player X that which is done by his teammates.   In trying to identify the best player, we can't slip into sloppy attribution, and I'm not suggesting that we should.    At the same time

1)  Winning IS the point of the game, and

2)  Analysis DOES evolve, and should.

On (1) above. . .let's assume that Alabama is in fact the best football team in the NCAA.    Should we recognize Alabama as the best team in the country anyway, even though they stepped on their shoelace against Texas A & M?    Or should we say, "No; winning is the point.   Being the best team isn't the point; WINNING is the point."

On (2) above, I can remember analysts who screamed at the first people who tried to value the innings of closers above the innings of starting pitchers.    PITCHING IN THE NINTH INNING IS NOT MORE IMPORTANT THAN PITCHING IN THE FIRST INNING, they would shout, and A RUN IS A RUN.   Eventually somebody created the concept of leveraged innings and a way to measure it, and we all said, "Oh.  I see."     You can't rule out by force or volume the possibility that there is a better way to look at the issue.

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Dr. Detecto looks at baseball stats MOSTLY as a way to predict the future.  There's value in saying, "Felix Hernandez' xFIP is running around 3.15; the best guess at his ERA next year is 3.15, adjusted for park.  xFIP predicts ERA better than ERA predicts itself."  There's value in having a best guess at the future.

But I think that, in our zeal to predict 2013, we should not completely dismiss 2012.  We shouldn't be SO concerned about what they coulda done, that we blow off what they did done.

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The Angels' failure to make the playoffs does not count against Mike Trout.  Not one iota.

But Miguel Cabrera's .667 SLG, and 26 home runs in the second half -- to put the Tigers in the playoffs by 3 games -- that sure as shoot counts for him.  Imagine if Edgar had done it.

BABVA,

Dr D

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