Chapter Two: The NEWS Hall of Fame Monitor

Title: BASEBALL’S BEST: The TRUE Hall of Famers
Author: Michael Hoban, Ph.D.
Formats: PDF (ebook) | Paperback
Pages: 223

Even when you have found a system like Win Shares which seems to be completely fair and unbiased in judging the value of a player for each season, there are still some questions to answer as to how to use the system most effectively when you are trying to decide which players had the best careers.This is, of course, related to such questions as“Who belongs in the Hall of Fame?”

Perhaps the most important question in this regard is how to judge a player’s longevity as compared to his core performance (his best seasons) .How, for example, do you compare a player like Al Kaline, who played for twenty-two years to a player like Joe DiMaggio, who played for only thirteen?Both were great players and both are in the Hall of Fame.During his career, Kaline accumulated 443 total win shares compared to 387 for DiMaggio.But, do you think that anyone would be inclined to claim that Kaline was a better player than DiMaggio?I do not think so.My point is that one must look at something other than total career win shares in order to better distinguish among the truly great players.

It is my contention that it is helpful to examine a player’s ten best seasons (what I am calling his “core value”) in order to get a better idea of how good he really is (or was).But, at the same time, one must give some appropriate credit to a player’s career achievements.It is this balancing of career accomplishments and core value that will tell us who had the best careers of all time.

During his ten best seasons, Joe DiMaggio accumulated 325 win shares – meaning that he averaged 32.5 win shares per season for those ten seasons – a truly impressive achievement.As we saw above, only nine players in the major leagues (two in the American League and seven in the National League) managed to earn 30 win shares in 2006.Imagine how difficult it is to average over 30 win shares for your ten best seasons.Al Kaline earned 268 win shares over his ten best seasons.This represents a very good core but nowhere near DiMaggio’s accomplishment.And so we can begin to see that Joe D was a substantially better player.

Core Value and Non-traditional Evaluative Win Shares (NEWS)

The Hall of Fame requires that a player must have at least ten years of major league service to be considered for induction into the Hall.And, if we are going to speak of a player’s “core value” for the purpose of evaluating his career, then it seems appropriate to use this “ten year” measure.That is, I will define a player’s core value (CV) as the sum of the win shares that he earned during his ten best seasons.

CV (Core Value) = sum of win shares for a player’s ten best seasons.

This core value tells us a great deal about the true value of a player’s career.

Why 10 Seasons?

No doubt there will be those who will advocate looking at a player’s “peak value” and suggest that three or five or seven seasons should be used to define a player’s “peak years.”And, of course, doing that could be helpful as well.But that is why I have coined the term “core value” – so as not to confuse this concept with that of a player’s peak years.Different players will have a different number of peak years.But I am suggesting that regardless of how many peak years a player may have had – the player’s ten best seasons may be considered the core of his career.It is my belief that if we are looking for the players with the absolute best careers(befitting those in the Hall of Fame), then we want to make our criteria as tough as is reasonable.And considering a player’s core value to be his ten best seasons seems to do that.(And, as noted earlier, the Hall of Fame requires ten seasons in the major leagues for consideration.)

Now, how will we give adequate credit for a player’s total career win shares?Consider the following.The CV already includes at least 55% of a player’s career win shares for all of the great position players – even those with the longest careers.For example, Hank Aaron played for twenty-three seasons and accumulated 643 career win shares.During his ten best seasons, he earned 356 win shares.This represents 55% of his total win shares.In fact, this is one of the lowest CV percentages for any of the truly great position players.So, this means that if we add an additional 25% of the career win shares not already included in the CV, then it would seem that we are certainly giving appropriate recognition to those players who had exceptionally long careers.

Therefore, I will define Non-traditional Evaluative Win Shares (NEWS) as follows:

NEWS (Non-traditional Evaluative Win Shares)=CV+.25( CWS – CV)

(where CWS means total career winshares)

One additional note would seem to be appropriate at this point.There are certain players such as Sandy Koufax and Jackie Robinson who had brief but outstanding careers.We will see that defining core value in this way does not automatically put these players at a disadvantage.It is simply necessary to include within the NEWS HOF Monitor some logical way of assessing these short but great careers.Actually, I will show that both of these players have HOF numbers.

I should point out at this time that throughout this book I will be dealing with those players who played the majority of their seasons in the major leagues during the 20 ^th century – that is, from 1901 to the present.I will not examine any 19 ^th century players since the game was so different at that time.

Why 25%?

NEWS is all about using the Win Shares system in trying to create an appropriate balance between CWS (career win shares) and CV (core value) – in order to judge who had the best baseball careers.In trying to create this balance, I wanted to give a fair value to a player’s longevity so that his core value (ten best seasons) did not overwhelm his career numbers.This required me to make an educated judgment call.

In examining the numbers, I made the decision that the NEWS should represent at least two-thirds of a player’s career win shares.The 25% evolved from this decision.That is, every player’s NEWS score represents at least 67% of his career win shares.For most players, it represents a much higher percentage than that.I should add that I did experiment with using other percentages such as 15% and 33%.For example, if we use 33% in the formula instead of 25%, a few relatively small changes would take place – obviously benefitting those players like Hank Aaron and Pete Rose who had particularly long careers.But, after much deliberation, I finally decided that 25% of the non-core win

shares seemed to address the value of a player’s longevity in the fairest manner – strictly a judgment call.

Players with longer careers and more career win shares obviously end up with a smaller percentage of their win shares reflected in their NEWS score.And the opposite is true for players who had shorter but still outstanding careers.But, of course, that is one of the points behind NEWS – to give appropriate creditto a player’s core performance (his ten best years).

In creating a HOF monitor using Win Shares, it is important to note that it is NOT the players with the longest careers who are sometimes at a disadvantage for the Hall of Fame – but rather those with a somewhat shorter career.For example, every player who has 400 career win shares and who has been eligible has been elected to the Hall of Fame. Players like Joe DiMaggio, Hank Greenberg and Joe Jackson (all with shorter careers) had much better careers than their career win shares might suggest.Consider the following examples which show the NEWS score divided by career win shares for selected Hall of Famers (and Joe Jackson).

Hank Aaron had 643 career win shares compared to 387 for Joe DiMaggio because Hank played for many more seasons.This does not really give a fair picture of how good each player really was.Aaron’s NEWS score of 428 compared to Joe’s score of 341 is a much better indicator of their relative careers.Hank had the better career – but not by as much as the career win shares might suggest.

Arky Vaughan and Brooks Robinson

Arky Vaughan and Brooks Robinson were both outstanding infielders who are in the Hall of Fame.The numbers that they accumulated during their careers illustrate rather well what the NEWS is designed to demonstrate.Both of these players accumulated 356 win shares during their careers.But that does not mean that their careers were similar in any way. Vaughan played for fourteen seasons and Robinson for twenty-three.Arky’s core value was 308 meaning that he averaged almost 31 win shares for his ten best seasons – a truly great performance.Brooks’ CV was 247 indicating that he averaged almost 25 win shares for his ten best – a very good career but not nearly as good as Vaughan.Arky’s NEWS score of 320 places him among the top 35 position players of the 20 ^th century.Brooks’ score of 274 is respectable but cannot compare to that of Vaughan .

Alex Rodriguez and Derek Jeter

Here is an example to illustrate the value of NEWS for active players.At the end of the 2007 season, Alex Rodriguez had 369 career win shares, a core value of 332 and a NEWS score of 341.This ties him with Joe DiMaggio as the 23 ^rd best position player of the 20 ^th century – indicating that he already has clear HOF numbers.On the other hand, Derek Jeter had 301 career win shares, a core value of 264 and a NEWS score of 273.As we will see, a NEWS score of 280 represents clear HOF numbers.So, even though Derek does not have HOF numbers at the moment, we can reasonably say that Derek Jeter will almost certainly establishindisputable credentials for the Hall of Fame.

In subsequent chapters, I will use the NEWS concept to examine the career numbers of all of the great players (including a number of current players).In doing so, I will comment on those players who should be in the Hall of Fame as well as on those who may not deserve to be there.